


Something Else

by ACB1



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 44,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4447727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACB1/pseuds/ACB1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been a decade since they were on the run together. But now, after ten years apart, Lizzie is doing what she has resisted doing for so long - she is asking for him: “Tell him I’m sick. Tell him I need him. Tell him to hurry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She is asking for him

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own The Blacklist or its wonderful characters.

When he got word she was ill, he was in Capri. It was rare he got news of her anymore. That was by design. Ten years had passed since he had whisked her away from Washington in a hail storm of gunfire and death, fear and discovery. It had been a difficult time for them both. And, after a year of running, a painstaking takedown of the Cabal and the clearing of her name for all but the death of an attorney general, they had parted ways. She had accepted his continued protection and a new name, both of them having agreed that she would not do well in prison and shouldn’t have to try to for the murder of a murderous man. 

He knew she got on with her life. Early on, he received information about her – her jobs, her locations, her lovers. But, it quickly became too much for him, the knowledge an impediment to his equilibrium, so he stopped asking. He let her be. He got on with things, too. 

The Concierge of Crime persisted, despite the efforts of the few remaining men from the crippled Cabal. He prospered, his enterprise grew, his contacts strengthened. He was powerful. The world over, he was sought after for his unmatched services. He traveled continually; he had lovers, old and new ones; he tracked down his daughter and forged a relationship of sorts with her; he lived, too. 

But, there was always something else – just beyond his reach, sitting in his peripheral vision, turning a corner, casting a shadow, whispering in his ear. He couldn’t reach inside himself deep enough to stop it – that something else that kept him running, pursuing what, he did not know. He just knew that if he stopped too long, listened too hard, the results would be detrimental. And, so for a decade, he didn’t.

That day Dembe found him on the phone in his study. He stood quietly in the corner and waited. Red’s fluent French slowed in the face of Dembe’s unwavering gaze – both intent and serious. He raised his eyebrows in question, but Dembe looked away instead of acknowledging the gesture. That alone was enough to halt business for the moment. Red quickly ended the call. 

“Dembe? What is it,” Red asked, his concern growing. “Are you alright?”

He looked at Red then and spoke slowly: “Elizabeth is very ill.” He paused, taking a deep breath before continuing, “She is asking for you.” 

“What?” Red, having been leaning against his desk, pushed off and approached Dembe, who stood across the room. He was shaking his head slightly, unconsciously. “How ill?”

“Gravely,” Dembe answered, softly, nodding. “You shouldn’t delay, Raymond.”

Red swallowed, biting the inside of his cheek. He nodded back. “Get everything ready,” he said quietly, turning away and walking out of the room. 

 

**********************************************************************************************************************************************

She was in Oregon. She had been in and out of the hospital there for months, but there was nothing to be done now but wait. She had cancer, was riddled with it really. She was too young for all of this; that’s what her friends had said. They had all been there for her for such a long time, but now she needed someone else. Someone she couldn’t bear to go any longer without. She had made the call that for a decade she had longed to make, and it had been so easy. So many things were easier now. “Tell him I’m sick. Tell him I need him. Tell him to hurry.”

There was nothing else to regret. Despite it all, she had had a good life. She had had a father who loved her, a good career with the FBI and later as a clinical psychologist, good friends, men who had adored her. There had been difficult times, without a doubt, but she had been strong and survived them – thanks to one person. All of it was possible because of one person. She needed him to hurry; he was her last thing, the last thing on her bucket list; she needed him now. 

 

*************************************************************************************************************************************************

Red was surprised to find he was being driven to her home and not a hospital. Dembe had insisted on accompanying him on this journey. And while Red had fallen into contemplative silence on the trip, Dembe was unusually talkative – but the talk was quiet, soothing, and Red knew, anxiety-riddled. Dembe feared what they would find, and how they both would feel about it. Red knew this, and he knew Dembe was right to fear it. He did, too. He feared how he would ever move forward from this experience, if it, in fact, played out as he was afraid it would.

After a while, Dembe pulled onto a quaint, tree-lined street and slowed the car to a crawl. He was looking for her house. Red found it hard to swallow; his pulse had quickened, and despite himself, he felt the urge to tell Dembe to turn back, to take them back to the airport. He felt ill-equipped to handle this. After handling so much unpleasantness in his life, so many truly awful things, this might be his undoing. He could not face her death. Not Lizzie. Not his bright, vivacious, spirited girl, the one thing that, even after all this time, still anchored him to this world. Dembe stopped the car. “Raymond.”

Red shook his head slightly and bit the oft-gnawed on inside of his cheek before taking a deep breath and lifting his head. The house was neat and welcoming, a perfect bit of Americana. “Okay, Dembe. Give me a minute,” he said, his voice deep and full of dread. 

“Raymond. You can do this,” Dembe said, his eyes in the rear-view mirror sympathetic but his voice strong. 

Red only nodded as Dembe exited the vehicle. 

When Red finally emerged, Dembe pushed his body off the car where he had been leaning, waiting, not considering going to the door himself. He was merely there as support. He had no plans to participate in the meeting, much as he wanted to see Elizabeth Keen again. This was too important to her and to Red. So, when Red looked back with a question in his eyes, Dembe only shook his head and stepped back into the car. He was going to leave them for however long it took. 

Red made his way slowly up the walkway to the front door. He decided to knock rather than ring the doorbell. His first round of rapping garnered no response. There was a car in the driveway, but he didn’t know her life, her schedule; maybe she wasn’t at home. With trepidation, he knocked again. Dembe had left, so no matter what he would be here a while. Finally, he heard movement from inside, a slow shuffling sound and then a voice. “Coming.” 

He felt sick, shaking with fear and adrenaline. What would he see when she answered? Would she even look like herself anymore? It had been ten years, and she was ill. What would she think when she saw him? Had he aged a lot or a little? He hardly knew; in all this time he hadn’t cared enough to dwell on that. Would she be happy to see him? She had asked him to come, hadn’t she? She wanted to see him. Why? He didn’t know. He was afraid to know. But, more than all of that, he feared that once he saw her again, he would never be able to leave her. 

The door opened slowly. And, then there she was. He held his breath as he gazed intently upon her; and she breathed, deeply and finally: “You’re here.”


	2. He needed to save her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, commenting and leaving kudos. You are wonderful!

She wasn’t what he expected. Not at all. She looked beautiful, like an angel, like the woman he remembered only ripened to perfection. She didn’t look sick. She looked radiant. He wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him. He wondered if he was seeing what he wanted to see, what he needed to see. And, so before he breathed, he blinked – hard. It didn’t help. With clear eyes, he saw the same vision. Ill or not, she had aged very well. Her hair, still long, was pulled back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. She wore a simple gray sweatshirt and black yoga pants. Her feet were bare. And, she had a white dish towel in her left hand. Her right hand was wrapped around the door. Her face, well, her face, was beaming. She seemed pleased and relieved. Her dimples. How he had missed them. 

“Come in. Please,” she said, motioning with her left hand, dish towel flying; he took it as his own symbol of surrender and breathed. “Here. Let me take your coat.”

He had yet to speak, but he needed to. He wanted to. He cleared his throat and coughed a bit. And, when she turned from hanging up his things on her coat rack, he finally did. “How are you, Lizzie?”

Her smile fell only briefly with the gravity of his question. She paused and searched his eyes, hers so soft upon him. “I am happy you’re here,” she answered gently. “Come into the kitchen. I am trying to bake some pies. It is not going according to plan.”

She turned and began to walk, and then he saw it. A weakness. Her gait was different; her movements were slow and careful. He reached out to her instinctively as if to support her, to assist, and then he realized what he was doing. He moved his arm back down to his side.

In the well-lit modern kitchen, he sat on a bar stool with a hot cup of coffee. She was facing him at the counter with flour, baking soda, blueberries, eggs and all manner of ingredients surrounding them. There seemed to be a loose method to her madness, and as he watched her – the sure turn of her hand, the occasional moistening of her lips, the shifting of her feet, the endearing tilt of her head, the marked concentration of her brow – he also listened. Her words and her body told him a story he longed to hear and dreaded at the same time. 

“You look really good, Red,” she said, smiling, her hands kneading dough and her head down. “Really, really good.” He watched her mouth move, her lips curve. She was so comfortable here, so calm and at peace. He could feel it all around him – the serenity. It was so shockingly different from the frenetic pace at which he lived, and he had yet to acclimate. His heart pumped furiously, and his hands tapped his mug incessantly. 

“Thank you, Lizzie,” he answered her, truly grateful that she did not find fault with him. “And, you … you look more beautiful than ever.”

She looked up at him then, slight disbelief on her face, but she saw the truth in his countenance. He believed it. “Thanks,” she whispered. 

She turned back to her task and within minutes two blueberry pies were ready for the oven. She stood back to admire her work for a moment, absently rubbing her floury hands on her dark pants. He saw the instant the pain hit her, taking her satisfied smile from her face, and he rose from his seat. She gripped the countertop and took a ragged breath. “Would you mind putting the pies in the oven for me, Red? I have to sit for a little while,” she said, as she began to move carefully along, using the counter for balance and assistance. He did reach for her this time, he had to: “Let me help you, sweetheart. Where do you want to go,” he asked, his voice quaking ever so slightly. 

“To the sofa. If I can just lean on you a little bit, I’ll be fine,” she said, sweat breaking out on her brow.

“Lizzie, I would carry you there if you’d let me,” he said with such an aggressive seriousness that she started to laugh. The sound so startled him that he quickly looked up at her face, having been focused on her body and his arm wrapping around her slender waist. The mixture of pain and glee he saw there made his insides flip flop and tears pricked painfully at the back of his eyes. 

“Oh, Red. I have missed you. Very much. Thank you for coming. I am so glad you’re here,” she said, her voice all merriment and nostalgic affection checked only slightly by pain.

“I’m glad, too,” he said, his lips near her hair as he held her tightly within the circle of his arm. They walked slowly to the sofa, and when she was seated comfortably, she nodded and moved her arm in the direction of the kitchen. He did as she asked. And, as the pies cooked and long after they were done, he sat beside her, and they talked in earnest for the first time in ten years. 

 

***********************************************************************************************************************************

 

“Mornings are the best time for me. My energy usually wanes by about 11 a.m. You saw it. It goes suddenly sometimes. So, I get up early, about 5:30 a.m., and I do as much as I can. Until I can’t. Then, I rest,” she explained, her legs curled up underneath her and a blanket on her lap. Her head rested on a pillow, as she faced Red on the other side of the sofa. Her words slightly slurred, and her eyes, so bright when he first arrived nearly two hours go, now dimmed, she seemed the embodiment of exhaustion. 

“Are you taking any medication, Lizzie? Are you doing any treatment,” he asked, his body turned toward her on the sofa, his legs crossed. His concern was obvious, he knew, but he was trying to be clinical to some degree. He wanted as many answers as he could get from her. He needed them. He wasn’t sure why she wanted to see him, or how long he had with her. 

She frowned at the question and confusion momentarily darkened her features. “Don’t you know?”

“What?” His confusion matched hers. “Sweetheart, how would I …”

She shook her head slightly at him, causing her pillow to slip a bit. “Oh. No. It’s … I thought … I guess I always thought … I don’t know … that you were aware, that you were made aware … of me, of how I was. I, um, I shouldn’t have assumed that. It’s been a long time. A really long time.” She stopped then, and she looked stricken. Her increasingly pale face now looked lost and alone, and the lump in his throat that had been growing the more she spoke, now momentarily prevented him from explaining himself. So, he fixed her pillow, and reached his hand out to caress her cheek and push back her hair, wisps of which kept falling out of her loose bun. She closed her eyes at his gentle touches, and she breathed deeply. He wondered how tired she was, how quickly she fell asleep now. He wondered how different her habits were now from during their year together. He knew her like a book then – every line, every punctuation mark, every crease of the page. But, now, he was unsure. 

So, when he could, he spoke to her closed eyes and forlorn face: “For a long time, I did know, Lizzie. Every day I asked and was given my update – on you. I could know down to the minute, the second how your day went – what you ate, who you saw, what you did, where you went. For a long time, I … I needed almost that much,” he explained softly, as he stroked her hair. “But, after a while, it seemed unfair … to you … and to me.” Her eyes opened then, and she found him close to her. His head back against the sofa cushion now, their eyes level. 

“I had to move on,” she said, her tone both explanatory and apologetic.

He nodded. “Yes, you did. And, so did I. That was the right thing to do. For both of us. I am only sorry now that I didn’t know about your illness sooner. I would have come. I would have helped. I can still help, and I will,” he said gently but determinedly.

She smiled sleepily at him, a knowing smile full of understanding and sympathy. “I thought you already knew, and you were respecting me by staying away. I should have known better. But, Red, there is nothing to be done. I have tried all the available treatments – radiation, chemo, more alternative therapies. Nothing has worked. I am okay with it. I came to terms with my illness a long time ago. I didn’t ask you here for help, not medical help anyway. I wanted to see you for more personal reasons. There are other ways you can help me now. If you are willing to.” 

“I am willing to, Lizzie,” he answered immediately, his emotion barely held in check. “How can I help you?” 

“Spend time with me. Talk to me. Let me see that you accept my eternal gratitude for all you have done for me. I owe you everything, and I don’t think I have ever thanked you properly for the life you have given me – when I was a child, for protecting me, for giving me Sam, and later as an adult, for saving me from Tom, from a life in prison, for giving me these last ten years of freedom and happiness. I have had real happiness in my life, Red, and all of it is due to you. So, now, let me thank you. Thank you,” she said with conviction, grasping his hand that still moved through her hair. She gripped it tightly for a moment before bringing it to her lips and kissing the back of it lingeringly. Then she lay her cheek against his hand tenderly, lovingly. “Thank you so much. For everything. All of it.”

“Lizzie,” his voice was a whisper, his eyes full of unshed tears. 

“Please. Accept my thanks. I need you to, Red,” she implored, her eyes closed, her face against his hand. 

“I accept,” he whispered, tears spilling against her hair as he leaned closer to her. “I accept, Lizzie.”

She sighed then. Such contentment. He heard it, felt it rolling off of her in waves. He wanted to give her everything she wanted, but more. He would spend time with her until she couldn’t stand the sight of him; he would talk to her until she couldn’t stand the sound of his voice. But, he needed to do more than that. He needed to save her.


	3. Dying to Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all! I am absolutely overwhelmed by the response to this story so far. Thank you for your moving, kind comments. I was really blown away by them all. Thank you so much. Thank you for your kudos, too! I wasn't going to post this story. it sat on my computer for several weeks. I'm glad I did now. You are all the very best!!!

It was done. Her last thing. The back of his hand against her cheek was so soft, so comforting. She just rested there. She had upset him, she knew, and that hadn’t been her intention. But, she needed him to know what he had meant to her life. She needed him to believe it. She knew it wasn’t just his hands that were soft, though. That he was sensitive, vulnerable even, especially with her, was something she had learned in flashes on the day she shot Tom Connelly and in the year following that event. Red could be hurt, and he had been – often and by many, including her. She had spent a year trying to make up for that.

During that year on the run, they had developed a camaraderie, a seamless working relationship and a dependence on one another that for her, at least, had gone unmatched. She had loved him – in an undefined, all-encompassing way. At first, she had welcomed his company, his stories, his strength, his intelligence, his sharp wit, his skill, his resourcefulness, but as time went on, she craved it – all of it. So, when the year came to an end, and the world was a safer place for her to exist, she resisted his initial attempts to move her out into it. She didn’t want to leave him, and the truth of that had shocked them both. 

Red had asked her then to think, to really think, about the life she’d always wanted, the life she had envisioned for herself as a little girl, as a young woman. And, then he told her to go live it. In her heart, she knew it was good advice; she knew he was giving her a second chance, and to waste it would somehow diminish all of his hard work. So, after a month of painful internal conflict, she accepted his help to start a new life. 

On the night before she was to leave him, he had arranged an elaborate dinner party at the Italian villa where they were staying. Dembe, Mr. Kaplan and others in Red’s inner circle attended; it was lovely. A perfect send off. But, when the champagne stopped flowing and the last guest had hugged her good-bye and good luck, she had found herself alone on the balcony with an empty glass and tears on her cheeks. How could she go? How could she leave all that she had? How could she leave him? As painful, scary and exhausting as the year had been, there had been quiet times, too, and laughter and, for her, love. 

“Lizzie?”

She wiped her cheeks quickly. 

“I was looking for you,” he said, stepping out onto the balcony, seeing but not commenting on her emotional state. “Everyone is gone now. I was going to head to bed. Unless you want a night cap first?”

“Oh, thank you, but I can’t drink anymore tonight,” she said, giving him a watery smile. “I’ll have a headache tomorrow as it is, and I have to travel. But, wait. Please. There is something I want before you go to bed. If you’ll indulge me.”

She was a bit drunk, but not enough to miss the trepidation as it crossed his face, or his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed. She had made him nervous. “What is your request,” he asked, trying to sound gallant and nonchalant but failing in the face of the deep, deep bedroom timbre of his voice.

She stepped up close to him, so close she could smell him. She inhaled deeply, the alcohol coursing through her making her brave. She looked at him, almost eye level with her, thanks to her heels, and said softly, to his eyes and then to his lips, which, tonight, were too compelling to look away from for long. “Where I am going no one will know me. And, I am prepared for that. I know that. But, will you tell me something true about myself before I go, and then kiss me good-bye?”

She stared at his now parted lips as she licked her own and waited for an answer. “Lizzie,” his voice was strangled. “I can’t kiss you.”

“Yes, you can,” she whispered, stepping closer still. 

“No. I can’t,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “You don’t know what you’re asking.” 

“Yes, I do,” she whispered, her lips inches from his. “Consider it a last request.” 

He searched her eyes then, taking careful measure of them and the rest of her features, before nodding ever so slightly. “Okay, Elizabeth. Okay. Are you ready?”

She opened her mouth to give him a smart comeback, and he captured her lips. For all his initial hesitance, he kissed her with an eagerness that overwhelmed her. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and held on. His hands slid from her sides and gripped her waist. It was the kind of kiss that could only be described as a prelude to something else, to something more, and neither was quiet in their pleasure of it. But, as she prepared to barrel forward, he pulled back, hugging her tightly to him. With his mouth at her ear, he said, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known, inside and out.” Then, he released her, and without looking back, he walked back into the villa. When she woke early the next morning, he was gone. 

Her memory of that night, that moment was still so vivid, and as she reflected upon it now, feeling him against her, she whispered his name on a sigh: “Red.” Then she slept. 

******************************************************************************************************************************************************

He stayed still and watched her sleep for a long time, her head still resting on his hand. So pretty. Always so, so pretty. She was forty-one now, and he still thought of her as so young – not a girl anymore, but not a mature woman either. Youthful, full of life, full of vim and vigor – that was how his heart remembered her, playing scenes of her on a loop in his mind as he sat beside her. And, now, this pervasive sickness had spread through her like wildfire, decimating her in the process. He felt altered, like he had entered some parallel universe or a nightmare and couldn’t get out, couldn’t wake up. He was going to be sick. 

He gently removed his hand, then rose and ran for the bathroom. When he was done, he sat on the floor in front of the toilet with his head in his hands, tears falling, nose running, bile burning his throat. He was an older man, over sixty years old now, and she had said, so sincerely, that he looked really good. He laughed bitterly for a brief moment. Sweet Lizzie. There wasn’t much he wanted anymore, certainly nothing he needed. He had money, homes all over the world, every luxury under the sun, a healthy daughter who didn’t hate him, a small circle of loyal friends and, amazingly, his health. He shouldn’t even be alive after all he’d been through over so many years. It seemed absolutely unjust that he was healthy, and she … she. He couldn’t think it. Couldn’t even think it. 

He got up then, wiping his face with a tissue, and walked out of the bathroom. She was still asleep on the sofa sitting up. He wanted to help her lie back, but he was afraid he would wake her, and he had something he needed to do before she woke. So, he walked quietly past her and into the kitchen where her pies sat, cool and picture perfect on the counter. He opened French doors leading to a backyard patio and sat down on a comfortable chair. He surveyed her garden, vibrant, bursting with life and color. Everything about her home was comfortable and perfectly appointed. She had always been so domestic, so very good at making a wonderful home. She was a nurturer at her core; he had seen glimmers of that in her life with Tom. It was why Red knew she had to leave him at the end of their year together, even if she didn’t understand it at the time, even though she resisted. She needed this life; the one she was meant to live. He had done the right thing. 

And, now he had accepted her thanks for that, for everything. But, she didn’t understand what it had meant for him to let her go, the impact it had, the void it had left. And, now he knew she was saying good-bye to him, making amends, tying up loose ends. And, he refused to be one of them if he could help it. 

He pulled out his phone: “Kate. I need your help.”

 

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

When she woke, he was gone. The sun was low in the sky, and she knew it was early evening. She had slept for hours. It was October and getting chilly outside. Her feet were cold, but otherwise, she felt cozy and content. She was lying back on the sofa with two blankets on top of her and when she turned her head, she saw there was a glass of water on the coffee table beside her. Red. Trying to make her comfortable. There was such kindness in him. 

Her chest hurt as she tried to suppress the sob that wanted out. But, the pain was too much. She had to let go. So, she cried, long and hard into her pillow. She had waited too long. Too long to call him. And, now, it was only to thank him, because for anything else, it was too late. Way, way too late. And, she knew that when she made the call, was resigned to it. But, the reality of him erased all of her careful planning and rational thought, all of her practicality and steps for a peaceful transition. And, for a little while she just wanted to feel sorry for herself. Then, she would buck up again and be okay. She was okay with everything. Really. She had accepted dying. A long time ago. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was she hadn’t yet accepted dying to him.


	4. I think, 'Yes'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you lovely readers for your continued support of this story!! I hope you enjoy this chapter. By the way, I think the story is going to go longer than my originally intended five chapters.

Chapter 4

“How long, Kate? Just tell me how long.”

“Raymond. You should stop this now.”

“How long?”

“Three months. According to her doctor. You are looking at the same charts I am. I don’t know more than that right now. Despite the small town she lives in, the hospital is fairly good. Her doctor followed the accepted treatment and even went beyond the norm to try something more experimental. It didn’t work,” she said, sighing. “Raymond, is she asking for your help? Because, it looks like she voluntarily ended the experimental treatment after the second round. She could have kept going. It was making her very sick. It looks to me like she made a choice. … Raymond?”

“Kate, call Chester. Tell him to drop everything. He will be paid obnoxious amounts of money to come here, to stay here and do whatever he can for her,” Red answered, rubbing his hand down his face. He had been on the phone with Mr. Kaplan too long. He needed to go back inside. 

Several hours ago, Kate had sent him Lizzie’s medical records – all of them. He stayed in her backyard reading them on his laptop until he couldn’t take it anymore. Two years’ worth of illness, treatments, false hope and ultimate decline were all documented there on those pages. And, now, in the back seat of his sedan, with Dembe in the driver’s seat, he was making plans he knew he had no business making. Lizzie hadn’t given her consent for any of this, and he wasn’t sure she would, but he needed to try. 

“I’ll call him, Raymond. I’ll get it set up. I just hope you understand the chances here. You need to be realistic,” Mr. Kaplan said, then hesitated before continuing. “Listen to her, Raymond. Listen to what she wants. I’ll be in touch.” 

Red pulled the phone away from his ear and handed it to Dembe. “This phone needs charging. I need another.”

“Would you like me to stay and wait for you, Raymond,” Dembe asked, reaching into the glovebox and fishing out another phone. He turned and handed the phone to Red, a question in his eyes. 

“No. I am going to ask her if I can stay. If she turns me down, I’ll get a cab back to the hotel. You go,” he stopped then, pressing his lips together and looking out the window.

“Raymond …”

“She’s weak, Dembe. She’s tired. I, uh, I can’t leave her,” he said, shaking his head, staring into the distance. “She’s beautiful still, Dembe. As lovely as when she left us, more so even. She’s happy here. Her life seems like a peaceful one. Come back in the morning and see her. She says she feels best in the morning.” He opened the door then and reached for his overnight bag and laptop. He walked back to her front door and entered the house quickly.

He closed the door quietly, expecting her to still be asleep, but instead he found her crying on the sofa. “Lizzie? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

She looked up, startled. Her wide eyes tracked him as he moved closer to her. When he reached the sofa, she sat up and finally had the wherewithal to at least shake her head. 

“Is there someone I should call? Something I can do?” He was distressed. And, she needed to relieve him of his concern. 

She had long ago stopped lying to herself, and she wouldn’t lie to him. She would tell him the truth. “No. No. I’m not in pain. I thought you’d gone. And, I wasn’t ready for you to go. I was feeling sorry for myself. That’s all. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

Her forthright answer silenced him. He sat heavily beside her on the sofa. His brow knitted, his mouth opening, then closing again, it was his turn to look stricken. She reached for his hand and threaded her fingers through his and squeezed. He wasn’t sure of her yet, she knew. He didn’t know this person she’d become over the past ten years, but he knew what he needed to. And, she could talk to him now, help make him realize that. 

“I didn’t know you were coming today,” she said, softly. “It was a surprise, a good one. I’ve wanted to see you for a long, long time. I just didn’t know how to go about it, or if I should try to, I don’t know, open that door again. You’d never reached out, and I figured you knew what I was up to, that you had the information you needed or wanted. And, asking you for more than that was unfair. As you said before. I understand what you meant. I think I understand why you stopped asking about me. It’s the same reason I never called. It’s not that I didn’t want to know, but, maybe, more that I was afraid to. I was afraid to hear about your travels, your new favorite places, your relationships. It might make me want something … other than what I had. And, maybe, I would find myself unsatisfied. I didn’t want that. I don’t think you did either.”

She smiled at him, a careful smile with just a hint of fear behind it. His eyes were fixed on her; he seemed intent on hearing her out, so she continued: “When I first left you, I went to New Orleans. I lived there for three years. I liked it there. The people are warm and generous. And, the food? Amazing. I made some good friends. I lived with a man for a year. He was wonderful to me. I loved him, but not the way I should’ve. When he asked me to marry him, I said no. Then, I moved to New Mexico, but it didn’t suit me. After a year there, I came to Oregon. I have lived in this house for six years. I love it. I feel in many ways that it is my first real home since I was a kid in Nebraska with Sam. I had a great job; I resigned from it about two months ago. I have great friends who care for me, care about me. I have had two significant relationships with nice men over the past six years. The last one ended about a year ago. I made him go. I was too sick. I just couldn’t have him go through that with me. I didn’t want him to.

“That is ten years in a nutshell, Red. I just want you to know me now, and to know I have thought of you and missed you. That’s why I want to spend time with you now. That’s why I was upset when I thought you’d gone. I’m just really glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would. I would have understood if you didn’t. This isn’t easy or pleasant. I know that. I’m sorry for bringing you into something … difficult. If I would have known you were coming today, I would have prepared better, been more physically ready. This might have gone more smoothly. I haven’t been the ideal hostess.”

She stopped then, having worn herself out. She took a deep breath and reached for the water he’d left her on the table. Her hand was shaking. She had shared a lot with him, maybe more than he wanted to know. 

It took him a minute to process all she’d said and gather his thoughts. There was so much he wanted to say, and so much more he wanted to know from her. He needed to first lay the groundwork for that opportunity. He squeezed her hand. “Lizzie, do you think you could tolerate me as a houseguest for a while? My habits are much the same as they were ten years ago. And, I am prepared to cook for you and talk to you incessantly, if you promise to talk back on occasion. I’d also like to treat you to some really good coffee that we can substitute for your more pedestrian local brand. I have our old chess board with me, and I am willing, for old times’ sake, to kick your ass each and every time we play. What do you think?”

“I think, yes,” she laughed, her dimples prominent on her splotchy, tear-stained face. “That sounds really nice. Like old times.”


	5. Do you always have pie for dinner?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again, you amazing readers, you!! I so very much appreciate the nice response to this story. It has really meant a lot to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Here is chapter 5!!!

Chapter 5

She showered while he got settled in her guest room and changed into more comfortable clothes. Then, they had pie and ice cold milk for dinner while sitting on the sofa, the TV on mute. It was like old times but with a new threat.

“Lizzie, your pie was perfection. I didn’t know you could bake,” he said, wiping his mouth, his plate clean. 

“I couldn’t when you knew me. I developed that skill in New Orleans. My boyfriend’s mother owned a bakery in the French Quarter. She taught me. She is a great lady,” she said, grinning at a memory. “You’d like her, Red.”

“What about her son? Would I have liked him,” he asked, knowing this was not an appropriate question, knowing it mattered not at all. But, also, feeling the sting he felt nearly a decade ago; it was Lizzie’s relationship with this man that caused Red to stop asking about her. This was what made him leave her be. What he had felt then, like now, he knew he had no right to. 

She squinted her eyes at him, concentrating, assessing, trying to decipher his tone and motivation. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. 

“Do you always eat pie for dinner,” he asked, changing the subject, trying to lighten the mood but only managing to sound chastising.

“I eat whatever I want, whenever I want it, Red. I do exactly what I want, when I want to do it, if I am able,” she said, sounding a bit miffed. He recognized that tone. It sounded like old times.

“And, so you should, Lizzie. I only meant … what I am wondering, I suppose, is do you have help? When you need it. Do you have assistance … with things?” He was stumbling now, becoming too invasive, perhaps. He risked offending her or causing her to shut down. But, he was working off of old information with this line of thinking. He would learn that soon. She had been through too much to be so easily put off by his escalating concern. She was not so bull-headed anymore, not so prideful. Being sick was humbling. It made you accept things, forced you to acquiesce ¬¬– with people, with situations. Being sick took choices away, but it didn’t leave you powerless. The power just shifted. It had taken her a while to learn this.

“I have help,” she assured him. “I have someone who cleans and runs some errands for me. She will cook if I need her to. But, usually I don’t need that. And, I thought you were going to cook for me? Didn’t you just make that promise a little earlier?” 

“I did, and I will,” he nodded, tilting his head and grinning at her, relieved by her more playful response. He liked looking at her. He always had. The truth was he wanted to stare at her at length, study her like a portrait in a gallery. A masterpiece. Both immediately striking and nuanced, endlessly captivating. He would never bore of her.

She smiled gently, enjoying watching him watch her. His slow perusal warmed her like nothing had in a long time. So, she stayed still and quiet for as long as she could. This was part of her power, to be present in the moment, to bask in it, to savor it like it could be her last. Because it could be. And, right now, if it were, she would be okay. Her last thing. He was also her best thing. And, he was here now. And, he loved her still. She could feel that plainly now. Earlier, when he admitted to not knowing about her life, of leaving her alone, she briefly worried it was because he stopped caring. Now, she knew that wasn’t true. He was settling down, relaxing; his chaotic movements were slowing, and in the calmness, she could read him better. Whatever he had done over the past ten years, whoever he had loved, he hadn’t stopped loving her. She had gotten to thank him for all he had done for her, and she had had the chance to feel his earnest devotion. It was more than she had hoped for. She was grateful, as grateful as she’d ever been.

“Red,” she whispered, getting so sleepy, so quickly, still watching his eyes pass again and again over her face as if he were cataloguing her, filing her away. 

“Yes, sweetheart,” he answered, his voice wistful and deep, smooth like brandy. Her stomach clenched; she’d almost forgotten the power of his voice, what it did to her. 

“I want to hear all about you. All about your life, but I’m tired now. So, in the morning, you will need to start that talking you promised me, and I want you to start by talking about you. Okay,” she asked.

“Whatever you want is what I’ll do. Prepare to be entertained,” he said, his voice hypnotic to her tired brain. 

“Good,” she nodded, slightly, her eyes drifting shut.

“Lizzie?”

“Yes,” she answered, eyes closed, head back on the sofa, reminiscent of earlier.

“Let me help you to bed,” he said, rising and grasping her hand in his to help her up.

She whined just a little and mumbled under her breath before she stood to follow his lead down the hallway, and he chuckled. He knew why she chose the name she went by over the past decade. Patty. It seemed so unsophisticated, so plain, as not to suit her at all, but she had needed a name she responded to, a name she felt something about. And, when she was a girl and would fall asleep on the sofa while watching old movies with Sam, he always said waking her up and getting her to bed was like getting a drunk Irishman out of the pub at closing time – there was the physical struggle, the arguing, the nonsensical chatter, occasional tears, and unsolicited declarations of love. And, so, in those times, Sam had called her “Patty.” More appropriate a name than Butterball, Red supposed. Sam. He had done right by Lizzie. The choice to take her to him had been a good one. It was one of the things Red was most proud of in this life.

When they reached her room, he walked her to the edge of her bed, but she stopped him when he tried to sit her down on it. “I have to brush my teeth,” she mumbled, catching his arms, which had moved to her waist, in her hands. She stood there a moment gathering her energy for the walk to the bathroom; she was truly exhausted. The joy of having him there had zapped her reserves, but she was happily depleted. And, she wanted him to know that as he went off to sleep. So, she slowly slipped her hands up his arms until they met at the back of his neck. With her meager strength, she pulled him toward her. He moved forward willingly, and she hugged him, as tight as she could, not caring about boundaries, lines in sand, or other unnecessary human constraints. 

She nestled her body against his in as intimate a way as she could. She wanted to feel his curves, his intake of breath, his heartbeat, his muscles, and his every minute movement against her. She wanted to smell him up close. She rubbed her nose against his neck and breathed deeply, humming against him, eyes closed. She craved human contact, but to relax in it had been difficult for her since she became ill. And, the truth was she’d wanted him, only him, this way for two years. Since she got sick, she’d only wanted him. She moved her hands from his neck down his back, tracing his spine with her fingers, moving outward from there over his back, her touch gentle and sure. They trailed to his waist, and she wound her arms around him there, squeezing. She moved her mouth to his ear then, her eyes still closed, she had been focused on feeling him. “Breathe, Red,” she whispered, breathing deeply against him herself. “Breathe with me.”

His arms tightened around her. “Lizzie,” he said, finally breathing, shallowly and swiftly. “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie.”

“I’ve wanted this all day,” she whispered in his ear. “It is such a comfort to feel you against me. I don’t know if I can fully explain to you how much it means to me.”

He didn’t speak, couldn’t; he only groaned in the back of his throat and tightened his grip on her. 

They held each other for a long time until she loosened her grip, sighing. “I should let you get to bed now, and I definitely need to sleep.” He only nodded, not letting her go. She pulled back enough to see his face. His eyes were tightly closed. Good, she thought. He is feeling, he is allowing himself this moment. She watched him for a second before leaning in and kissing his cheek, tenderly, lingeringly. “Goodnight, Red,” she said, her mouth against his skin. Then, she let him go and walked slowly to the bathroom.


	6. "This is not why I asked you here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, because I am heading on vacation where I am unlikely to have Internet access. So, until Sunday ... 
> 
> But, first, thank you for your continued support!!! You have all been so wonderfully supportive of this story. This is the most fun I've had writing fanfiction. Thank you!!!

In the morning he found her on the patio watching the sunrise. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore a heather gray cable knit sweater over soft jeans, thick socks on her feet. No shoes. She had her hands wrapped around a coffee mug. The picture of comfort. She looked fresh, healthy, much as she had when he arrived. He wondered how soon that glow would fade today and if he would witness it leaving. He needed to talk to Kate. Last night as he lay in bed, he realized that Lizzie’s three months had started three weeks ago according to the date on her medical chart. She had “approximately three months,” it said. 

As much as he wanted to sit with her, take in the sunrise through her eyes, he needed answers this morning. Answers that would allow him to sit and talk with her about himself, because right now that was the last thing on his mind. So, he turned away from the French doors in her kitchen and made his way back to the guestroom. 

*************************************************************************************************************

Morning. Her favorite time of day now – its start. She used to be such a night owl – reading, enjoying some wine, savoring a late dinner, socializing, making love – but now she could barely make it to nightfall before going to bed. Maybe it was fitting that at the end, you embrace the beginning, celebrate it. 

She weeded her garden after she had her fill of what she had to admit was spectacular coffee. Red’s taste, as usual, was on point; the consistency of him made her happy. After weeding and washing up, she began making breakfast – eggs, bacon, yogurt, fruit, bagels, and oatmeal. It was her biggest meal of the day, and she needed as much protein and nutrition as she could get. It was 7:30 and still no Red. He was missing it. Her best time of day.

*************************************************************************************************

“He’ll be there later today. We’ve secured him an office where he can administer to her,” Mr. Kaplan explained.

“We may need him to come here, to her home – if she’s more comfortable that way,” Red said.

“Chester is open to whatever you need. He’s been working on something over the last few months that he wants to try on Elizabeth. There haven’t been trials yet, Raymond. It is not only experimental, but it is untested. There are risks,” she warned.

“I think we are at the point where we must accept those risks, don’t you,” he asked. 

There was silence on the other end of the line. “Kate?”

“If SHE is willing to accept them, then, yes. You need to talk with her as soon as possible, Raymond. If we are going to do this, the sooner we start the better. For her. For all of us.”

“You aren’t confident,” he stated, feeling sick to his stomach. 

“I am not sure what to be. There’s just a lot we don’t know. But, Chester Laughlin is the best oncologist I know. His research is unmatched. He is brilliant, and I do trust him, so if we are going to do this, then he is the man to do it with. I’ll call you when he has arrived in his office. We also arranged an apartment for him nearby. He’ll be available to you whenever you need him, Raymond,” she explained. 

“Thank you, Kate. For everything,” he said.

“I want to help, Raymond. We all do. We also want you to take care of yourself,” she stressed. He knew there was already concern that he was taking on too much, investing where he shouldn’t, unwilling to face reality, leaving himself open for disappointment and despair. But, he also knew they knew why he was doing it. She had opened her door yesterday, and he knew instantly that for a decade he had pursued a lie – that he could be okay without her. He couldn’t.

*************************************************************************************************************************

“Hey! I was wondering when you’d wake up. You missed a pretty spectacular sunrise. Breakfast is almost ready. And, I made your coffee. You were right, Red. It is a treat,” she said, all bubbly happiness and contentment. 

She didn’t know what he had in store for her. And he wished he didn’t have to tell her, to ruin her careful plans. But, there was no choice. He needed to allow them breakfast, first, though – a calm before his impending storm. “Good morning, Lizzie. I had some business I had to attend to this morning or I would have joined you earlier. What are you making?” 

He walked over to the counter and stood behind her at the stove, peering over her shoulder. She looked behind her at him. He looked nice, in his usual – suit pants, dress shirt, vest, tie, but minus the jacket. His attire was immaculate as ever. He was clean shaven, so he’d clearly managed to find all he needed in her bathroom. Although, he traveled fully stocked for the most part. He wanted little, needed even less, generally and specifically speaking. 

She smiled at him. “Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese mixed in. It’s pretty white bread by your standards, but it tastes really good. Sit.”

“You seem well rested. Energetic,” he observed.

“I will be for a while,” she answered, turning off the stove and grabbing plates. “I usually exercise after breakfast. Walking the neighborhood, down to a park and then back. Would you like to join me? I know aimless walking isn’t your favorite, but it would give us a chance to talk. The weather is great today. Perfect, really.”

“I think aimless walking sounds terrific. And, it looks like I’ll need the exercise after this. Is this why you eat only pie for dinner, Lizzie? Because you are still full from breakfast? This is a feast.”

She had filled his plate with everything she had sitting out ready. “This is almost done, too,” she said, nodding to the pot of oatmeal. Then she looked up at him, as he took his first sip of coffee, waiting for her before beginning to eat. “As the day goes on, I am less inclined to eat. I get as much in early as I can.”

“Hence, your housekeeper’s lack of cooking,” he murmured, gathering information on her habits. “The coffee is good, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm,” she nodded. She got bowls for oatmeal, dished it out and sat with him at the table. She lifted her glass of water and tilted it toward him. “To our first breakfast together in a decade.”

He laughed at her silliness and raised his coffee cup and tilted it toward her, nodding his head. “You are a lot of fun in the morning, Lizzie. I never knew that.”

“I was the worst in the morning, Red. That’s what you remember, I am quite sure. You are just being nice about it, not pointing out how grumpy I was back then. This morning person thing is fairly new. I like it, though. There’s such peace in the start of a new day. I’ve learned to appreciate that.”

 

*******************************************************************************************************

They ate their breakfast in contented silence, talking occasionally about little things. But, Lizzie was saving her big questions for their walk. She had been right; it was perfect walking weather, if there was such a thing. They walked slowly; she set the pace, and as Red had noted upon his arrival, her stride was much shorter than it used to be. His FBI Lizzie had such a fast, determined walk, an almost boyish jaunt, especially when she was angry. Something about it had fascinated him from the outset; he used to imagine her underneath her skin - her hip bones, her joints, her muscles, everything having to move swiftly, furiously to keep up with her desired pace. Now she moved slowly, cautiously, and after a little way up the road, he linked his arm through hers, smiling apologetically, as if he needed the assistance, the indulgence. 

“Tell me what you’ve been up to, Red? Are you working some? Or, have you retired to some tropical paradise where you drink umbrella drinks with beautiful women on pristine beaches all day and night? Do tell,” she coaxed.

“Well, Lizzie, as appealing as that second option sounds, and I am already kicking myself for not thinking of it myself, I am still very much engaged in my business at the moment. There has been no slowing down since you went away; in fact, business has increased tenfold. We are booming, as they say,” he admitted, sighing unconsciously. 

“Oh. I didn’t expect that. I thought after everything that you had reconsidered the work. Moved on to something else. Slowed down a little. You certainly could afford to,” she said, her voice conveying surprise along with no small amount of dismay. “Have you been safe, Red? Are you careful? You don’t take any unnecessary risks, do you?”

“I am as safe as ever, Lizzie,” he answered, looking ahead, spotting the park in the distance. But, his next step forward was his last for the moment. She had stopped walking to stare at him. 

“Well, that isn’t safe at all, is it? What are you doing? Why did you continue? When I left you made it seem like … like things would be different. That even if you continued your business your part in it would be more behind the scenes, in a much less visible capacity. That isn’t what happened at all, is it?” She seemed especially agitated, and her breathing was labored. He spotted a bench and guided her to it. 

Once they were seated, he pushed toward an explanation: “Once you left, things were slow for a time, but I … I needed to get back to work. And, it is my business; I know it; I’ve always stood at its head. Time seemed ripe for it to flourish, so I saw that it did. And, as you can see I am sitting here before you in one, albeit increasingly decrepit, piece. All is well. Dembe is still with me, Mr. Kaplan, many of the others you knew back then. We move around a lot, like we always have. Not so much has changed in ten years, Lizzie.”

“Not enough,” she sighed and turned her head away from him. “I don’t know what I expected to hear,” she said quietly. “I just hoped … I guess I hoped you had found some peace, some quiet like I had … that maybe you had settled down, too. I know that has been my hope for you and not your own, but I hoped it nonetheless.”

“There is one thing, then, Lizzie, that you might be very happy to hear. It is more in line with your hopes, but it is also one of my longtime desires come true,” he said, softly. 

She turned to him then, her eyes wide. “What is it?” Her voice quiet, worry coloring it. 

“Jennifer. I found her. About seven years ago. I see her sometimes now. She is doing quite well,” he said. His shy smile was unlike any she’d ever seen on him. He looked … proud. Extremely proud and pleased.

“Wow. Red,” she laughed, tears in her eyes. “I am so happy to hear that. I am … very, very happy for you.”

“Thank you, Lizzie. It has given a new dimension to my life,” he said, staring ahead, afraid of the emotion he knew he would find on her face. It would be too easy to mirror it, and, now was not the time. He had to move them in another direction. “Shall we continue the walk?”

They did, and by the time it was done, she had asked a number of additional questions. Some answers made her happy, others didn’t, but he talked about himself as promised. 

She learned that he had found some time for more leisurely pursuits – golf in England, diving off the Great Barrier Reef, dining in Paris, and car racing – a new interest – in Monaco. He wasn’t terribly adept at driving fast, initially, he confessed. His first race landed him in the hospital with a broken femur and two broken ribs. He promised he had improved. A number of years ago he had bought a vineyard in Argentina. He spent time there regularly now, enjoyed the country, the people, one woman in particular. He didn’t dwell on his female companions, but Lizzie did ask of their existence, and he admitted to them. He still saw Madeline Pratt on occasion; this brought a frown to Lizzie’s face faster than anything else he had said. He made note of that. 

When they returned to the house, a car was in the driveway. Dembe. Red had forgotten he had told him to come over in the morning. 

“Huh. I don’t recognize the car,” Lizzie mused, as they got close. 

“It’s Dembe, Lizzie. I hope you don’t mind. He wanted to see you,” Red said, worried she would not be receptive to the visit. But, he couldn’t have been more wrong. She was more than pleased with her additional guest. She plied him with food and for information. He laughed with her for more than an hour. They were as compatible as they ever were – thick as thieves, Red used to call them. 

But, as it neared lunchtime, he saw her falter. She tripped going to put a pitcher of tea back into the refrigerator. She caught herself by grabbing the counter, but the glass pitcher crashed to the ground. Red had stood quickly, the slide of his chair loud against the kitchen floor. Dembe looked alarmed and caught Red’s eye. The subtle shake of Red’s head had Dembe going for kitchen towels. Red went to Lizzie. 

“Are you alright, sweetheart,” he asked, touching her arm lightly, not wanting to make a bigger deal out of her stumble than he should. 

She lifted her head, her face pale and her eyes tearful. “I think I did too much, Red,” she said, her voice weak. “I … I need to lie down. Tell Dembe. Please. Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him to come back tomorrow. We can finish talking then. Okay, Red? Will you tell him?” 

“Lizzie. Yes. Can I help you?” He was shaking he realized. 

“No. I got it. I’m going to bed for a little while,” she held on to the counter until she couldn’t, then she used the walls to steady herself as she wove her way down the hall. He heard her bedroom door close, and then he sank back into a chair, resting his head in his hands. 

“Raymond,” Dembe’s strong voice was behind him. “I’m going to clean this up.”

“Come sit, Dembe,” Red said. “I’ll get that in a minute.”

Red raised his head to look helplessly at Dembe seated across from him. He couldn’t speak, only shook his head in defeat.

The two men sat in silence for several minutes. When Dembe finally spoke, it was decisive and forthright: “My brother, you were right. We need to help her. We need to do everything we can. You are right to want to try. She was herself, and then she wasn’t. One minute she was our Elizabeth, then, suddenly, she was a very sick woman. It was hard to see. Convince her, Raymond. We can start tomorrow.”

“I will do whatever it takes, Dembe,” he said, nodding, his eyes glassy. 

**************************************************************************************************

He spent his afternoon cooking and reading, gaining intelligence on her illness. He had also been sent all of Dr. Chester Laughlin’s journal articles, one of which detailed the experimental treatment he planned to try on Lizzie. The truth was it scared the hell out of Red. She would likely feel worse before she felt better. And, if she didn’t respond to the treatment, she may die never again feeling as good as she did that morning. But, there was no choice in his mind. They had to move forward. 

When Lizzie woke, it was, much like the day before, nearly sunset. But, unlike the day before, she knew Red was there. She could smell him – or rather his cooking – as soon as she opened her eyes. When she entered her living room, Red was reading the paper reclined on the sofa, his shoes off. The view made her smile; he had gotten comfortable in her space very quickly. It was easy for him to adjust to a new environment, but even for him, this was quick. 

“Hey,” she greeted him, rubbing her hand across his shoulder. He started and moved to sit up, but she held her hand there. “No. Stay. You look comfortable. I’ll just sit here by your feet,” she said, moving to sit beside him. He watched her, uncertain what she had planned, as she settled on the far end of the sofa, pulling his socked feet onto her lap. “There. You don’t have to move at all,” she said, satisfied with the cozy arrangement. Her level of comfort with him surprised him; after all of the time that had passed, she seemed more desirous of his nearness than she had ever been. It pleased him, but also reminded him of the reason behind it. 

“How are you feeling, Lizzie,” he asked, having to look slightly up at her. 

“I’m good,” she said, momentarily mesmerized by his socks, brick red with what she now realized were small hammers on them. She was afraid to hear the story behind this purchase or, worse yet, gift.

“If you are feeling up to it, I’d like to talk to you about something.” His tone was serious; she recognized the resolve in it, and it made her focus shift. 

“I want you to talk. You know that. But, I sense you feel I won’t like what you have to say,” she said, looking up at him and raising her eyebrows in question. 

“I’ve made you some delicious vegetable soup. Are you hungry,” he asked. 

“Not yet. Tell me what you want to tell me, Red. It sounds important,” she said, fearing he was about to tell her he had to leave. She could tell he was nervous, that he was reluctant. He was worried about her reaction to his leaving. She would be strong, though; she would smile and make sure he knew she was pleased with the visit. She would let him go. It had been perfect, really. He had been perfect. 

“Lizzie, I’ve been made aware of a treatment that could possibly help you. I have arranged to have a specialist – a world-renowned oncologist – come here to care for you, to administer the treatment to you. He will be absolutely focused on your care and your care only. I’ve known him for a very long time; I trust him implicitly. He will be ready to see you as soon as tomorrow. His name is Dr. Chester Laughlin. This is a treatment option you haven’t explored, Lizzie, and I am asking if you will meet with Dr. Laughlin about it. Listen to what he has to say and consider this opportunity. Please,” he finished, taking a much needed breath. He had been gauging her reaction, and as he talked he saw a flurry of emotions flash across her face – first, confusion; then, realization; then, shock; and finally, for the first time since his arrival, his old friend, anger. 

She sat silently for a full minute, breathing deeply, trying to gather herself. She wouldn’t look at him; once he’d stopped talking, she went back to looking at his socks. Her hands had made their way around his ankles while she listened to him, and now her grip on them was tight, unwittingly revealing to him her struggle to remain in check. 

“This is not why I asked you here, Red,” she finally said, her voice hard. “I already expressed that to you. This isn’t what I wanted or needed from you.”

“Lizzie …”

“I just wanted to see you again. I wanted to say good-bye. I wanted to thank you. I wanted … I needed … I needed to say good-bye to you before I … I just needed to see you one more time,” she stopped. The more she said, the more her anger morphed into pain and helplessness. She moved to stand and realized the placement of her hands and his feet. “Let me up,” she said. 

But, he didn’t move. In fact, as cruel as he felt it was, he pressed his legs down to keep her there as he sat up, bringing his face level with hers. “You asked for me. You asked me to come. And, you know me, Lizzie. You do,” he stressed, as she began shaking her head. “You must have known, in some part of yourself, that I would do this. That if there was any chance, any hope for helping you, I was going to take it.”

“When I asked for you, I thought you already knew I was sick. I thought you knew. But, what happens now isn’t up to you, Red. I am not yours to save. I am not a helpless little girl anymore or a young FBI agent who doesn’t know her own past,” she said, her voice shook with emotion and adrenaline. She was feeling everything at once, and her teeth were beginning to chatter. “I have done everything, EVERYTHING, I could to help myself. You don’t know what I’ve gone through over the past two years. I wanted to live, Red. I tried like hell. Nothing worked. Do you hear me? Nothing worked.” She was crying now, and he clenched his hands into fists. “I was so sick for so long, because I was fighting to get better. And, I never got better, Red. I. Never. Got. Better. But, now I feel okay. I feel better than I have in a long time, and I can have that until it’s all over. That’s what I want. Not more disappointment. Not more dashed hopes. And, I certainly don’t want to watch you go through that with me. I can’t do that. It's why I didn't call you sooner,” she said, lifting her hands to wipe her eyes and cheeks. “Let me up, Red,” she whispered.

“Lizzie, please …” he said, moving his legs, allowing her to stand and move away from him. 

“The answer is no, Red. No,” she said, walking away and leaving him alone.


	7. Not Without a Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned from vacation! I have another chapter coming on the heels of this one that should be posted in a day or two. Thanks as always for reading, commenting and leaving kudos. They make all of this so much fun! I appreciate all of you very much. Let me know what you think! Enjoy!

She closed the bathroom door gently behind her and leaned against it, putting her face in her hands. Then, she slowly slid down the door, sat on the floor and allowed herself the chance to fully feel the range of emotions his words brought forth in her. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have asked her to do that. To try. To once again agree to face the disappointment and despair that would most certainly be on the other side of this attempt to save her life was too much. 

After two days, he didn’t have the perspective – the right – to ask that of her. She had suffered enough. She had already settled her affairs; she was prepared to move beyond this life; she had come to terms with her impending death. She had told him this. But, he hadn’t. He hadn’t come to terms, not by a long shot. He was new to this reality, something she didn’t realize when she had asked for him, when she had finally made the call she had longed to make and admitted that she needed him. And now, she had to admit to herself that she shouldn’t have asked for him. She had opened the door to this, and she was sorry - sorry to make him feel something other than her genuine affection and gratefulness. She had wanted him so badly, but it had been wrong to involve him in this. If only she had known that he was blissfully unaware of her predicament, she would have left him alone. Wouldn’t she? 

She had had an end-of-life agenda, and he was an important part of it. He had been a constant, a mainstay, in her mind, if not in her daily life, for ten years, and she had felt all of that warranted closure, warranted a good-bye. But, it had been unfair to him. She had miscalculated, because he was not only her constant but also a variable, with his own agenda, his own thoughts and feelings, his own wishes. And, now she was at a loss; she was no longer sure where to go from here with him. She just felt absolutely certain that they couldn’t end like this.

She ran her hand through her hair and then back down her face. She was sticky with sweat, and her face was wrecked from her breakdown. She needed a shower before she could face him again with any semblance of respectability. She turned on the water and began to strip her clothes off slowly, wracking her tired brain for a way forward, a way to make him understand without hurting him anymore than she likely already had. 

******************************************************************************************************

As much as he had wanted to follow her down the hallway and continue to plead his case, he had let her walk away. He had listened to her cries as he paced the living room. He had upset her greatly, but she had upset him, too. She had rejected his offer, unequivocally. No. She had said, no, and her reasons for doing so were good ones. She had made a compelling argument, but he wasn’t swayed one bit. 

His hand were still balled into fists, and he wanted to use them. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to wail, to howl against the injustice. He wanted to beg her to reconsider and if she wouldn’t? He wanted to sedate her, kidnap her, steal her pain-filled memories again and force her to bend to his will. He was a criminal, and his tendency to behave like one in this situation was strong. He was scattering, though; his mind was racing, moving swiftly in too many different directions. And, he needed to focus and quickly. 

He needed to calm down. He needed to think rationally. He needed to be reasonable. He needed to make her see that there was a chance, and she needed to take it – for herself – but, also, and to a much lesser extent, for him. 

*************************************************************************************************************

“Lizzie?” His knock went unanswered, so he tried again, tapping lightly on the bathroom door. He heard the water running, but nothing else – no movement, no other noises. “Lizzie?” He knocked again. No answer. He waited a moment, listening, before turning the doorknob and finding the door unlocked. 

“Lizzie, are you alright,” he asked, speaking loudly over the rush of water.

“Red? What are doing?” She sounded more tired and frustrated than surprised at his presence. 

He sat down on the closed toilet lid. The room was warm, steamy and filled with her scent. He took a deep, deep breath, taking the chance to fill his lungs with her. She smelled heavenly, as wonderful as she ever did, and, it calmed him amidst the turmoil and desperation. Then, a movement caught his attention. 

“Red?”

Through the shower curtain, he could see the outline of her, her curves. He was surrounded by her smell, and he was watching her body move, and he was momentarily mesmerized. He was taken back in time to when she was well and leaving him and asking him to fulfill a last request – to give her a kiss. 

“Red? Are you still in here?”

He blinked and shook his head slightly, then on a wistful sigh, asked. “Do you want me to leave, Lizzie?”

His question was met by a heavy silence. Then, she opened the shower curtain enough to stick her head out to look at him. Her face and hair dripping, her eyes wide with alarm. She searched his face before answering him with conviction: “No. I don’t. Do you want to go?”

He could see her neck, her shoulders, her chest, the beginning swell of her breasts, her arms. He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to go,” he said, his voice deeper now, changed, distracted by her body. 

“Okay, then,” she said, nodding, relief changing her face, relaxing it. “I’m almost done. Then, we can eat. And, talk more. I know you don’t understand, and I want you to.”

He nodded back, giving her a small smile, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the water sliding between her breasts, sliding further than he was able to see, sliding where he had only imagined.

She moved back and closed the curtain, so she could finish her shower. He stayed. He watched. 

By the time she shut off the water, he was beside himself with the effort to resist the temptation she presented him. He had forgotten his original motivation for entering the bathroom. He only knew what he wanted in the moment that existed right now. Her. In a way he had never had her. 

The curtain opened, and there she was, fully revealed to him. The gasps that filled the room were loud because of their coupling – his and hers. 

“What are you still doing in here,” she cried, reaching for a towel from the nearby towel rack. 

“You told me to stay,” he answered, awed by the vision of her, his eyes greedily taking her in. 

“No, I didn’t,” she said, indignant, wrapping the towel tightly around herself. 

“I asked you if you wanted me to go. You said, no.” He reminded her, his voice melodic, low and deep. She shivered at the sound of him, of what that tone meant. He wasn’t looking at her, at her eyes. Her agitated expression was lost on him. He was tracking her body, watching it, even now that it was covered.

“Red. Look at me,” she said, and the sound of her own voice shocked her. She sounded breathless.

“I am, Lizzie. I am looking,” he said, his eyes gliding slowly toward hers, until he locked his searing gaze on her face, on her bewildered eyes. 

“I thought you were asking me if I wanted you to leave my house. Not the bathroom. I thought you were going to leave me; that your visit was over. That’s what I was saying no to, Red. I would have been fine with you leaving the bathroom,” she explained, somewhere between exasperated and amused. He looked an awful lot like a dumbstruck schoolboy, and it was rather becoming. 

“Oh,” he smirked. “That does make more sense.” He stood then, preparing to give her the privacy she wanted. “Lizzie,” he said, his hand on the doorknob, but his body still turned to her. “When I arrived here two days ago, I told you you were as beautiful as ever. You seemed skeptical of the compliment. I would like to reiterate it now. You are breathtaking.” With that, he left her alone.

*********************************************************************************************************************

When she emerged, it was to a candlelit dining room, soft music, wine, homemade soup and fresh bread.

“Red! This is beautiful,” she exclaimed, smiling sweetly at him, seated at the table patiently waiting for her. “I am afraid I am underdressed for the occasion,” she said, gesturing to her light blue silk pajamas.

“I think you look perfect. Come sit,” he said. “I know you may not be very hungry, but I hope you like it. It’s an old recipe from Mr. Kaplan. She’s quite the cook, you know. Taught me much of what I know.”

“I didn’t know that about her. She seems to be good at everything, though, so I shouldn’t be surprised,” she said, sitting down and sipping her wine. 

“That’s why she works with me,” he said, lightly. “I want the very best.”

“I know you do,” she answered, a tinge of regret coloring her response. She took her first spoonful of soup and hummed. “This is delicious. The perfect dinner.”

“Good, because I made plenty,” he said, nodding and watching her take her next bite, watching her lick her top lip when she needed to clear some broth from it. He should have left the bathroom. He shouldn’t have looked at her that way. It resurrected things better left buried. The year they had spent together had tested his every fiber. He had lusted after her at first – the desperation he had felt to keep her close, to protect her had quickly morphed into something that shamed him; then, he began to know her in a way he never would have if not for the tenuous situation in which they found themselves, and his feelings expanded. He had spent years seeing to her needs from afar, then more closely, but in all that time, he hadn’t known her intimately – her quirks, her cravings, her sense of humor, her playfulness, her emotional triggers, her true sweetness and indelible kindness. He began to love her, really love her, the woman who stood strong and tall in the face of such adversity. 

When the time came for her to leave him, he struggled. The war he waged he kept hidden from her, but it existed, and it was bloody. When she expressed her wish to stay with him, it caused him to falter, to consider concession. When she asked him to kiss her good-bye, when she whispered, “Yes, you can,” in a voice that resided only in his dreams, his resolve finally slipped, albeit briefly. That singular event haunted him like nothing else. Her eager response to him, her noises, her clutching hands, her lips and tongue, her intoxicating smell, all of it resided in a corner of his brain at the ready; he could conjure it at will. Still. But, he had been controlling it better in the last few years. Until today. Until a little while ago. When it all rushed back to him – vivid, sharp, alive. 

“Red?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“I have answered you about your request, about the treatment, and I meant what I said. But, I hope my answer doesn’t bring an end to your visit. I don’t want it to ruin our time together. I’d like to enjoy this wonderful dinner tonight, and your company for longer. I don’t want you to leave upset with me or yourself,” she said, her eyes worried and imploring.

“Oh, Lizzie,” he said, gently, putting down his spoon to grasp her hand. “I’m not leaving you. I am not sure how you are ever going to get me to go. I know you meant what you said. I’m sorry to have upset you, but I hope you understand that I had to try, that I will continue to try, however unpleasant for you. I have to try.”

“I understand that you feel that way, and I think I understand why you do,” she said, squeezing his hand. “But, we may be at an impasse.” 

“I will not give you up without a fight. I can’t do that,” he promised, squeezing back. But, she didn’t understand why he couldn’t, not fully. She knew he cared for her, loved her to a degree, but she couldn’t know the extent of it or the lengths to which he would go for her. He had spent years making sure she didn’t know any of that, but now he intended to show her, and he would not waste any time doing it. Because, it might be the thing that saved her; he had to believe it would.


	8. Because I love you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter might make you all happy. I hope it does. Let me know!!

They talked more over dinner – about the farmer’s market she visited every Sunday, the old movies she watched at night in her bedroom with all the lights off, and her fondness for spending mornings in the local library. These were her simple pleasures; they made her happy. She asked him to tell her a story – a good one, and he did. By the end of it, she was laughing out loud and accusing him of hyperbole, but she loved every minute, every detail of the telling, absolute truth or no. 

When she eventually stood, he made a move to gather their dishes, but she put her hand on his. “Tomorrow my housekeeper comes. I don’t usually leave messes like this for her, but tonight? Leave it,” she urged, and gathered his hand in hers more fully. “You come with me.” 

He followed her silently, as she moved them from the dining room, down the hallway, and into her bedroom. Once they were fully in the room, she let go and faced him. “I, um, I need to lie down, but I don’t want the night to be finished yet. Maybe you could put on your pajamas and join me in here for a movie? I have a lot of great pillows. We can prop up on them and turn out the lights, like I usually do, and relax. Like an old-fashioned slumber party. What do you think?” She bit her bottom lip, nervous, worried he might think her request too much. 

But, he grinned at her in response. “Just give me a minute to change,” he asked.

“I’ll get everything ready,” she said, nodding and smiling. 

When he returned she was in bed under the covers, beautiful and bewitching, but sleepy, he could tell. Her eyes gave her away, but in her weariness, he sensed such pleasure. 

“Climb in,” she gently commanded. “It’s The Philadelphia Story. One of my favorites. I love Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. And, Katharine Hepburn is one of my absolute favorite actresses. Have you ever seen it?”

He sat on top of the covers beside her, leaning back on the pillows she had arranged for him. “I have seen it, but not in many years. So long ago I hardly remember it,” he admitted. 

She slid over to get a little closer to him as she explained: “It’s funny and romantic. The characters played by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant were married once before, but now she is going to marry another man. She wants to have this perfect life, be this perfect woman, but she can’t, because she isn’t over her first love, Grant. He’s not everything she ever wanted, but he is everything she needs.”

“Lizzie, you are giving away the plot,” he whispered, theatrically. And, she laughed, a tired, but merry tinkle in the air. “Oh, sorry,” she said.

And, she started the movie. She watched only intermittently, though, sleeping through at least half of it. He couldn’t help but run his hand through her hair sometimes when she was dozing, when he was watching her instead of the movie. She did come more fully awake in the film’s last twenty minutes and watched it, riveted, as pleased with the conclusion as if it were her first viewing. Red found her enthusiasm both immensely charming and utterly heartbreaking. She was a romantic at heart. He knew this about her; she wanted the happy ending, reveled in it. That’s why she watched these films again and again. And, if anyone deserved a happy ending, a happily ever after, she did. 

“Red, did you not like it,” she asked, her eyes on his profile. 

“What? No, sweetheart. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a wonderful film,” he answered, but he knew he wasn’t believable by the look of concern on her face. 

“What is it? What’s wrong? Tell me,” she asked softly. He hesitated, but her worry pushed him forward.

“I was just thinking about you and how much I want you to be happy,” he answered, going for the honesty and openness she now employed. 

“But, I am happy, Red,” she said, scooting just a bit closer to him as she propped herself up on her elbow, becoming more eye level with him. She had slid lower on the bed during her sleep. “You being here is making me happy.”

They breathed quietly facing one another in the darkness, the only light in the room, from the TV, dim now that the movie was over. “Can I tell you something? And, you promise not to laugh,” she asked, a conspiratorial tone of mischief in her voice.  


“Of course,” he said, playing along. 

“You kiss like a movie star,” she whispered, her eyes twinkling.

“What,” he asked, caught off guard, the beginning of a laugh bubbling forth.

“Ah ah ah. You said you wouldn’t laugh,” she chastised, before explaining herself. “When I watch movies like this, I think of you. I think about the night of the party. You remember? The night before I left when I asked you to kiss me good-bye? When you did, you swept in, so confident and strong. You swept me off my feet. It was perfect. A girl’s dream kiss. You were passionate, sure and so very able. Like Cary Grant but better. The kisses in these movies are chaste. Ours … wasn’t. It was something else. Something unforgettable. You kiss like a movie star, Red.”

He couldn’t speak for a beat, overwhelmed by her, by her revival of that personal pivotal scene that lived and played again and again in his mind. Now, he understood it to be a shared memory of shared significance. “Oh, Lizzie. You made it easy. You are extremely kissable. Much more so than Katharine Hepburn could ever dream of being. No comparison.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say. Not really, but she seemed to like it.

She giggled like a schoolgirl in knee socks and blushed sweetly. “Thanks,” she said, still joking. 

He regarded her silently for a moment. “Have you been kissed lately, Lizzie,” he asked.

The unexpected question sobered her quickly. “No,” she answered, dipping her head down, rubbing her hand back and forth over the sheet beneath her. “No. Not for a long time.”

“Why not,” he asked, dipping his head down to try to catch her gaze, but to no avail. 

“It just hasn’t been a priority. It isn’t one anymore,” she answered, the joy seeping out of her so quickly he almost stopped his line of questioning. Almost. 

“Are you not interested in romance – in the physical aspects of it – anymore, Lizzie?”

Her head shot up then, and she was at a momentary loss for words. But, he seemed to be asking clinically, so she answered, albeit haltingly and with some embarrassment. “No. I mean, yes. I am. I am interested in romance, in sex. I do think about it sometimes. It just isn’t … I just haven’t done anything like that … for a long time.” 

He nodded, assessing her, as serious as when he was discussing her treatment. “Would you like to, Lizzie?”

“I would, but it just isn’t going to happen. Not now, not …” She stopped then, realization hitting her as she watched his eyes, his face. This wasn’t clinical interest or even casual interest. This, this was personal interest. And, something inside of her chest felt like it was bursting open; she was hot all of a sudden, and her mouth had gone dry. “Red? Are you asking me if I would like to have sex … with you?”

“I am,” he nodded, as serious as she’d ever seen him. She was so overcome, so flattered, so, so many things that her physical reaction hadn’t even begun to catch up to her emotional one. She reached up and ran her hand along his cheek before cupping it. He leaned into it and waited.

“Red, you don’t have to do this. I am ...”

“Lizzie, I am not being altruistic. Don’t misunderstand.”

Her heart beat furiously in her beleaguered chest. Her throat was tight. She felt she was vibrating – all nerves and repressed energy. Her shaky hand continued to caress his face. She swallowed and shook her head ever so slightly, moving it in time to some internal dialogue. When she had gathered herself enough, she answered him, her voice low and shaky: “I’ve thought about you over the years; I’ve wondered whether we missed an opportunity. When you kissed me, I thought – oh, man – I thought all I wanted was to experience more with you. So, I have been … curious, very curious about you, about what it would be like with you, how we would be together. I’ve thought about that many times over the past ten years, before then even. But, I am not the same as I was then. I am a sick person. I don’t know how I’d … be anymore.”

His eyes were warm on her, and his voice was soft, not at all demanding or coaxing: “My sweet Lizzie. You are sick, and I am old. Neither of us is what we were ten years ago.” 

“You’re not really old, Red, but I am really sick. And, I haven’t done this in a long, long time. That is probably not the case for you. I imagine you are quite skilled and very much in practice. I have … some skills, but I am sorely out of practice. And, and, honestly? I’m scared,” she admitted, her eyes misty. “Thank you, but the mere thought is terrifying.”

“I have never known you to back away from a challenge. Terrifying can be good. Terrifying means you are alive, Lizzie. Don’t give up being terrified just yet,” he pleaded gently, before leaning over and giving her cheek a soft kiss. He began to leave the bed not wanting to pressure her in any way, not wanting this moment to turn into something she would ever regret, but her hand shot out quickly and pulled him back. She had moved to lie on her back, and she pulled him over her. He balanced himself on his arms above her, a question in his eyes. 

“Kiss me, again, Red. Like you did that night,” she said. “Can we start with that? A start this time – not a last request.”

In answer, he slowly bent forward and ever so gently placed his lips over hers. So soft, so warm. When he pulled away to gauge her reaction, he was met with closed eyes and a slight frown. “You’re being tentative. Don’t be,” she whispered, opening her eyes to him and placing both her hands on his cheeks. Without a word, he dipped his head down again and captured her lips in a searing, lengthy kiss – full of longing and desire. Like that night. Like she asked. She moaned at the first touch of his tongue, clutched at his nape when he began kissing her neck, hissed when he bit the pulse pounding in her throat and sighed when he finally, finally pulled away. He left her breathless, intoxicated and unfulfilled. She wanted more. Just like that night. “You are wrong, Red. It’s you who makes it so easy. You that is so kissable. You make me want more,” she whispered, her hands moving along the planes of his face, tracing him, her eyes dark and full of desire. 

“Then want more. You deserve more. And, you have nothing to worry about, Lizzie. You are not out of practice. Not by a long shot. You have nothing, nothing to be afraid of,” he whispered back. “Especially not with me.”

“Why especially not with you,” she asked, looking up at him.

“Because I love you,” he admitted, his arms beginning to shake from holding himself above her. “Because I love you in every way always, no matter your health, no matter your sexual prowess, no matter your feelings toward me. It’s time you understood that. Because it’s the truth. And, you deserve to know it.”


	9. I will stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you all are amazing!!! Thanks a million times for the kind comments and kudos and for reading. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to write and then receive such nice feedback. I look forward to hearing from you again this time around!!

“Patty? Come on back,” the familiar nurse smiled at her and made small talk as she led Lizzie through the sterile hallway of the doctor’s office to an empty patient room. “Dr. Nichols will be right in.”

“Thanks, Gloria,” Lizzie replied, all too aware of the drill. But, today, she dreaded what might be to come. She had purposely left her house early, very early. And, it had felt underhanded, sneaky, and not at all right or fair. Not at all what she wanted. 

She had left Red asleep in her bed. It had been so hard to leave him, so hard to move her body away from the warmth and comfort of his. The pull to him was strong. It had always been. But, now, it was almost painful in its intensity. She had wanted to stay and wait for him to open his eyes. She had wanted to be the first thing he saw that day. She had wanted to see his expressive eyes open to her. What did he look like upon waking? What did he sound like? Did he fight waking up or welcome it? Was he soft and gentle or intense and eager? Did he like sex in the morning? She wouldn’t know, because she couldn’t stay. 

She had watched him sleep as long as she could. She had watched as the sun began to creep up, highlighting the lines and planes of his face, dancing over his eyelashes, playing with the silver in his short hair. He loved her. In ways she didn’t expect. In ways that, over time, she had stopped believing he could. Throughout the world, there wasn’t another who knew her as long or as well. She’d compared every man since him to him, and none fared well enough in the end. None made her want to stay – forever. And now, forever was short. And, all the time and effort she had spent coming to terms with that fact had been in vain. Because now, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave him. Last night, she had felt like a girl again – a girl with hopes and dreams and plans and memories to make and love to share. She didn’t feel like dying. She wanted to stay. 

****************************************************************************************************************************

“I want you to know the truth. I want you to feel it, to believe it, and I want you to want more, to have more. And, I want to be the one to give it all to you, because I love you,” he had said last night, looming above her; she could feel his arms shaking from the effort of holding himself away. “But, sleep now, Lizzie. You are so in need of rest. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

“Red, come here,” she said, breathless, gently wrapping her arms around him and pulling him down to her. “Don’t go. You can’t tell me what you’ve just told me and expect me to let you go.” She pressed her face into his neck, breathing him in, brushing her lips against his skin. “You love me,” she whispered, awed by his confession. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why withhold this for all this time? Why not tell me?”

“It was a necessary omission,” he said, quietly, his face pressed into her hair. “It would never have helped you to know it. I don’t know that it helps now.”

“It does. It does help,” she whispered, her mouth against his neck as she talked, touching him. “I am surrounded by people, good people, who care about me. People I care about in return. But, you were always the one I wanted, and I knew why – why I couldn’t get married again, why I couldn’t open up like I needed to, why I couldn’t shut the door on the past. I’ve known why for years. Because I love you, too. I have for a long, long time. It’s why I had to call. I tried not to, Red; I waited as long as I could. I should have let you be; you didn’t have to know any of this. And, now, now, I don’t want to let you go. And, I know that’s not fair to you; you have a life. You need to live it. You do. But, you deserve the truth, too.” Her tears slid from her face onto the pillow beneath her. Her breath grew ragged against him. She had begun to shake, too. 

“You did the right thing. Calling me was the right thing. Thank God. Thank God you called,” he said, his voice catching slightly as he kissed her hair. He lifted his head and brushed her hair and tears away from her face. He kissed her forehead, her eye lids, her cheeks and finally her lips. “I want you to get some sleep. Because tomorrow, we plan. Okay?”

“What are we planning,” she asked, and she sounded so hopeful, so wonder-filled. She still had such an air of innocence about her after everything. He kissed her lips again, lingering there, sealing his fate to hers. 

When he finally pulled back, he answered: “I’m not leaving you. Not ever again. And, there are things I want to do with you; things I have waited years to do with you. So, rest. This is our start, Lizzie.” 

“I will rest, but stay. Will you stay,” her eyes searched his, asking, still uncertain.

“Yes, sweetheart. I will stay.”

********************************************************************************************************************************************************

“Patty. Good to see you. You are looking well.”

“Hi, Dr. Nichols. I am feeling okay,” she answered.

He nodded back, assessing her. “How is your energy level? Any significant changes since you were here last?”

“Things are about the same. I get tired more easily, but I have been exercising like we talked about. I eat as much as I can. I don’t think I’ve lost any weight lately. My hair is doing pretty well,” she joked. 

“Yes, your hair has come back impressively well, I must say,” he grinned. He took a deep breath. “Patty, I have your test results, and I’d like to go through them with you now. Okay?”

She took a deep breath, feeling slightly nauseous. “Yes. I’m ready.” 

**************************************************************************************************************************

He woke to an empty bed, an empty house. Her absence frightened him in what he knew was an unreasonable way. This was her house, her life. She had things to do, no doubt. Things she had put on hold since his unannounced arrival. But, when he found her short note, it rattled rather than soothed him. She had errands to run and would return soon. He had woken up at 6:30 a.m., rather early for errands. But, again, this was her life. He found repeating that to himself didn’t settle his unease. 

He worried that, in the light of day, she had regretted last night. Truths had been told; long-held secrets revealed; and vulnerabilities acknowledged. It had been cathartic, life-affirming, arousing and the realization of something for which he’d dared not hope. But, did she feel the same? Had she felt doubt and conflict upon waking? Had she reconsidered opening herself up to him? Or, did she think she could protect him from her illness, from her? Because there was no protecting him. Only her. 

He pulled out his phone and dialed: “Chester? Are we ready to go?”

“Raymond. I am all set up here. I am just waiting on you. Will I be meeting with Elizabeth today,” the doctor asked. 

“I am trying to sort that out. She is reluctant, Chester. She’s been through a lot,” Red explained.

“Most patients have been by the time they get to me,” Dr. Laughlin admitted. “I can deal with that. I understand and can counsel her.”

Red paused for a moment, scanning the empty bed: “Chester? What are our chances of saving her? The truth. I need the truth.”

“The truth is impossible to know. Everyone responds differently. But, one thing is certain – if she does nothing, she will die soon. If she tries this, she has a chance. If she wants to extend her life, tell her to meet with me – as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Chester. I will be in touch.” Red hung up the phone and walked to the kitchen. He made coffee and went outside. He paced the backyard for a long while before reading the newspaper in fits and starts. Then, he heard the front door open. She had returned. But, when he went to greet her, it was, instead, a woman he didn’t know. The housekeeper. Her work would take about three hours. He promised to stay out of her way. 

Red worked outside on the patio in the backyard – making calls, finalizing deals, manipulating situations, creating new identities for the rich and desperate. The frenetic pace that followed him to Oregon was returning; his nerves were getting the better of him. The longer she was gone, the more certain he became that something was wrong.

He finally went inside and began preparing an elaborate lunch – marinating chicken breasts, chopping fresh vegetables for steaming, baking a simple out-of-the-box pumpkin bread. His movements were quick, jerky and laced with cooped-up adrenaline. But, when Cora, the housekeeper, told him good-bye, she said something that slowed him: “Tell Patty I am still praying for her. I know today she had her big appointment with Dr. Nichols. She won’t say, but I know she’s been worried about it. Tell her I’ll see her Thursday.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and put down the knife he’d been holding: “Cora, can I ask you a question about Patty? We are old friends, but before this visit, I hadn’t seen her in years. I know she was very sick because of her cancer and the treatment she was undergoing, but I haven’t asked her for details. Can you share with me a little about what you know?”

“Oh, sir. She was very sick. Yes. She was often in the hospital, but when she was home, she could barely get out of bed. She was nauseous much of the time, had trouble eating. She was very thin. She lost her hair. There were several of us who took care of her. Her boyfriend, John, loved her very much and took very good care of her, but one day she told him to stop coming over. It broke his heart. I felt very sad for him, but she was not in a good place. Toward the end of the treatment, she was so weary. Finally, when she stopped, we got the old Patty back. But, now, I see her slowing down again. Getting tired. Sleeping more. I worry about her every day, as if she were my own child,” Cora explained. “I have worked for her for six years, since she came to Oregon. First, every two weeks, I came and cleaned. Then, when she got sick, I came everyday she would have me. Now, she says, ‘Two days a week, Cora. That’s it. Go do your other clients.’ But, I’d rather be with her. She is a good soul, a sweet person. I wish there was something we could do.”

“Me, too, Cora. Thank you,” Red said, his voice low and scratchy. “I’ll tell her you are thinking about her.”

When she left, Red sat down, leaving the lunch unfinished. Lizzie was getting worse. 

******************************************************************************************************************

At nearly noon, he heard the front door open. He didn’t move from his spot in the kitchen, where a short time ago he finally felt able to continue his task of preparing their food. He waited, and soon she appeared in the doorway. His hands gripped the counter, and he took a deep breath before lifting his head to look at her. Her purse dangled from her fingers, her hair was falling out of her loose bun, her lips were raw, her face was beyond pale, and her eyes were … her eyes were devastated.

She said nothing. She only looked at him with such heartbroken intensity he found it hard to breathe. He was riveted to his spot across the room from her, paralyzed, his heart thundering in his chest. Finally, she pressed her lips together and began shaking her head. She dropping her purse to the ground and moved toward him as quickly as her body would allow. When she made her way around the counter, he stepped up to her, afraid to speak, afraid to ask. She gripped his shirt in her fists, and he encircled her waist with his arms pulling her close to him, hugging her tightly. Soon, she moved her arms around his neck, getting herself closer to him, as close as she could get, and when she spoke he felt it reverberate through his whole body: “Red, call your specialist.”


	10. What I am to you, you are to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter! There is progress - things are happening!! Thanks for reading as always. You are all much, much appreciated!

He held her close, felt her heart beating furiously in her chest and her rapid breathing against the side of his face. She was scaring him. “Tell me what happened,” Red said, pulling back from her, his voice deep and fraught with a fear he couldn’t contain. Lizzie opened her mouth to begin an apology for leaving him in her bed with no explanation; she wanted him to understand, but he stopped her. There was no time for that. “I know you’ve been to your doctor. Cora was here. She told me. Now, tell me what you found out.”

She searched his eyes before shifting her gaze to a place behind him. “The news isn’t good. I didn’t expect it to be. I knew it wouldn’t be … I’ve been prepared for that, for decline. But, now, now … it’s probably too late, and I want to try … I need to … I need to fight back. I have to try … I have to …” Her voice trailed off as she became lost in her head, struggling to come to terms with the decision she’d made only an hour before as she sat in the park near her house on the same bench she and Red had occupied a day earlier. 

As exhausted and distressed as she had been after her appointment and as much as she wanted to get home to him, she had stayed on that bench, unwilling to face him until she could face the truth of her situation – that he was there, loved her, and she was going to leave him without doing everything humanly possible to stay. In the end, that truth proved unacceptable. Her only option was the one he presented her, the one she had rejected outright. Her savior to the end, he had done what she couldn’t, what she wouldn’t – he had found another way. And, as much as it frightened her to embark on another round of therapy, as much as she feared a negative result – almost couldn’t bear the thought of it – she needed to try for him – and for herself.

Her hands, clasped around his neck, were holding her up, along with his arms around her waist; the effort to stay upright on her own was becoming too much. “I wasn’t afraid before you got here, and I’m still not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of something else now – of missing out on this – on us. I want it, Red. I want us. As long as I can have it. I do. So, call your doctor. Set up a meeting,” she said, as her legs began to buckle. She had been awake too long. She had done too much. He picked her up then, and began carrying her down the hallway to her room. 

“I’m okay. I can walk,” she said, her voice weak.

“Lizzie, I told you when I arrived that I would carry you if you’d let me. Let me,” he said. 

“No matter what happens I want you to know that I love you,” she whispered, her eyes closing, despite her efforts to keep them open, to look at him. 

“I know it, Lizzie. I know it,” he answered, reaching her bedroom and placing her gently on her bed, removing her shoes and covering her with a blanket. He kissed her cheek and smoothed her hair from her face. “And, I also know you are making a difficult decision, but know this, too: it is the right one.”

She opened her eyes and gripped his hand, pulling him down to sit next to her on the bed. “Red, will you do something for me?”

“Absolutely anything,” he said. His earnestness made her smile.

“After we see the doctor and before I start whatever treatment he has planned for me, can I take you somewhere? There’s something, someplace I want to show you. Before … before I can’t for a while,” she said, her eyes slipping closed as she talked. 

“We’ll go as soon as we finish with Dr. Laughlin,” he nodded. “Sleep, Lizzie.” He kissed her again on her cheek and the side of her neck, lingering close to her as she drifted off to sleep. He heard her breathing even out, felt her grip on his hand loosen. His beautiful girl. He had loved her for so, so long. And, she was willing to try to live for him. He didn’t know whether he was existing within a dream or a nightmare; maybe it was somewhere in between. He knew she was agreeing to pain and sickness, to something she had already decided against ever doing again. For him. 

He didn’t deserve her efforts. He knew he didn’t. But, he wanted them more than anything else. To think that she could have slipped from this world without him even knowing about her illness was unbearable. To think he could have missed any of this was too much to dwell upon. Even if the treatment failed, he would know they tried. He would know she loved him, and more importantly, she would know he loved her. 

He would deal with his business. He would set things in motion that would allow him to step back for now, maybe forever. He would focus on Lizzie, her health, her care. He would do everything to make her comfortable. She would have whatever was within his power to give. For the rest of her life. To think that she had loved him all this time, to the detriment of other relationships, to the detriment of her own fulfillment, left him with the desperate need to make that up to her. To show her that waiting for so long had not been in vain. He wanted to show her that they could make up for all of it. In whatever time they were given. 

*******************************************************************************************************************************

Nearly three hours later, he reluctantly woke her; it pained him to do it, but, in truth, it pained her more. She needed the rest; she felt out of sorts, sluggish and unreasonably angry. She had grumbled under her breath as she made her way to the table to eat. “Okay, Patty,” he tried to joke, reminding her he knew the origin of her name, the one Sam had coined for his little girl. 

“Ha ha, Red,” she said, quietly, but she didn’t smile. Worry creased his brow, but he said nothing. She managed to eat a little of their now very late lunch. When he realized she was leaving the chicken untouched, he playfully questioned her, hoping to coax her along, to get her to wake up a little bit more. 

“I don’t want it, alright!” She slammed her fork down on the table. “I’m tired, Red. I am sure it is delicious, but I’m tired. I don’t want to eat any of this, but I am – for you. Because I know you made it for me and want me to. But, I am not eating the chicken!”

Her intense emotion and volume startled him. To navigate through this illness with her, he would have to accept her exhaustion, her anger, her sorrow, and much, much more. He knew that, he welcomed it, in fact. And, of all of those emotions, he felt most comfortable and familiar with her anger. Somehow it allowed him to breathe. He wanted her feisty; he wanted her ready to fight – with him and anyone or anything else she needed to. 

“It is indeed delicious, Lizzie. We’ll wrap yours up for later,” he said, casually and kindly, continuing to eat. “That is no problem at all.”

She stared at him, her blue eyes blazing. “Well, you responding like that just makes me feel like an asshole, now doesn’t it,” she said, still angry. 

He tried to stifle his laughter, but he wasn’t quick enough under her intense scrutiny. 

“Go ahead and have your laugh, Red. I know I am being ridiculous,” she spat. 

And, so he did. He chuckled under his breath at first, then more loudly. Yes. He was quite familiar with this woman. Eventually, he saw her dimples cut into her cheeks and looked up to meet her eyes. They were tired but amused. “Sorry,” she sighed. “Forgive me?”

“Oh, Lizzie. You forget how well acquainted I am with this side of you. I welcome it like an old friend. And, I understand it. And, you, my dear. Never apologize to me,” he said, sincerely, tilting his head at her. 

She nodded and asked, “Can we go now? I’d like to get it over with.”

***********************************************************************************************************************************

Dr. Laughlin’s office was conveniently located five minutes from Lizzie’s house. The office was well appointed and inviting. It took her a minute to realize the waiting room was empty because she was the only patient, would always be the only patient. Red had bought this doctor to try to cure her. It seemed insane. Impossible. The vestiges of another life. And, yet here they were, beginning on a path, unsure of where it would lead.

“Elizabeth,” the doctor came out and shook her hand. “Come back with me.”

She turned to Red with a question in her eyes and, lingering behind that question, a request. “You go, Lizzie. I’ll wait here,” he said, nodding definitively. 

She sighed, “Okay.”

As intimate as she wanted to be with him, this illness had been hers and hers alone. She needed to continue to control the course of it, and its destination, as much as possible, without the influence she would most certainly feel if he were sitting beside her. She was doing this for him in large part, but, to some extent, she had to continue to do it alone. In the end, the cancer was hers and hers alone; it lived inside of her, mingling now with so many parts of her; she and it co-existed, inhabited the same space, breathed the same air. They both wanted the same thing – to live, to dominate – and that wasn’t possible. For one of them to live, the other had to die. She knew how to kill, had done it and remembered what it felt like. She needed to remember it now – the instinct to survive that allowed one the strength to kill. 

Talking with Dr. Laughlin helped her find the instinct again. She found him to be knowledgeable, explanatory and kind. The perfect doctor. His explanation of the therapy he planned for her was thorough; he answered all of her questions; and he eased her mind. He knew her case, had reviewed all of her records, had made calls to answer his own questions, and he was ready to treat her. Now. He pulled no punches. Time was not on their side. He recommended beginning immediately. 

“Can I have until tomorrow morning,” she asked. “There’s something I need to do first.”

“That’s longer than I’d wait, Elizabeth. Every minute counts now, but it is up to you, of course,” he said. 

“Thank you. I understand. I’ll be back in the morning. Early,” she promised. 

“Let’s begin at 7 a.m. tomorrow,” he agreed, standing and shaking her hand. 

******************************************************************************************************

By the time they turned onto the long tree-lined gravel driveway, they had been winding uphill for a while. They had been in her car for an hour with Red at the wheel. 

“What is this, Lizzie,” he asked, pulling the car into the very small parking lot, delighted with the landscape and the secluded nature of their surroundings.

“This is my favorite place. A bed and breakfast I found when I first moved here and was poking around, trying to get my bearings. It’s fairly isolated, beautiful, and just mine,” she said, staring into the distance, watching the shake of the trees in the breeze, the sun beginning to dip on the horizon.

“Just yours?” He got out of the car and came around to her side, grabbing her overnight bag from the backseat and opening her door for her.

“I’ve never brought anyone here with me,” she said, taking his proffered hand and standing up. He closed the door behind her. 

“Why not,” he asked watching her as she watched the horizon. 

“I needed a place where I could just be me. The real me. Elizabeth. I have been very happy with my life; I’ve told you that. Eternally grateful for it. But, there were times when I just needed to be quiet, to think, to remember. I needed a place where my past could exist. That’s what this is. So, Sam is here, my parents, Tom, too; and Dembe, Ressler, Aram, Meera, Samar, Cooper, even Connelly, everybody. You. You’re here,” she explained, turning to him, continuing softly, “And, I just wanted to show you, to bring you here. So, I could somehow, I don’t know, reconcile the past with the present. Because you know the truth, all of me. Who I was, who I am. It seemed important to bring you here, to come here myself one more time.”

“I’m glad you did,” he said, not commenting on her 'one more time' phrase. He gently placing his hand on the small of her back. “Should we check in?”

She nodded, glad that he was receptive to the place, that he found it pleasing. Days before he had arrived at her house, she had visited the inn for what she thought would be the last time. It had been the last thing on her list before Red – her real last thing, her final wish. Now, to be able to share this place with him seemed like the best kind of closure. 

“Lizzie?”

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking,” she laughed a bit, realizing that she had stopped walking steps from the front door. “Red, thank you for coming here with me. It means more than you know having you here.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you asked me to come. Now, come on. Let’s get you inside,” he said, ushering her through the door. 

*********************************************************************************************************************

Their room in the big old house was replete with hardwood floors, a wood-burning fireplace, thick rugs, plush bedding and towels, and a breathtaking view out of a large picture window. They stayed only minutes in the room as Lizzie wanted to walk the grounds with him before she became too tired to show him her favorite walking trails, the back porch complete with rocking chairs overlooking the lush landscape and the sunset that was minutes away. For an hour they wandered until she shivered and linked her arm through his. Leaning into him, she whispered, “Let’s go back now.”

He ordered room service, something simple. It was getting late; she was tired. He could hear her in the bath, moving around in the clawfoot tub. He closed his eyes, remembering her fresh out of the shower, her body, its loveliness, how much he wanted it. He lay back on the bed, resting his head on the down pillows; the next thing he felt was her soft lips on his. He opened his eyes to find her above him, her hair damp and piled up on her head; she was wearing a white robe. Her face was scrubbed clean, her cheeks rosy from the warmth of the water. Exquisite. 

“Red,” she whispered, against his mouth. “The room service has arrived, so we shouldn’t be disturbed anymore tonight.” She kissed him again. “And, I have a question. What you proposed last night – making love with me?” Her body covered his, her weight tantalizing to his waking body. She kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “Is that something you still want?” She kissed the other side of his mouth. “Because as terrified as I am – and I am – I want to know what it feels like, what you feel like, what we feel like together.” She tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth. “I want you here, in this place.” She kissed his mouth fully, letting her tongue graze his lips. He groaned. “Before anything else happens, I want us to have this.” She kissed him again, deeper, her tongue slipping inside his mouth. His hands came up to grip her waist. He was fully awake. She moaned at the feel of him. “Do you want this with me?” She kissed his chin, his jawline to his ear, where she whispered, “Now?”

He hissed as she tugged at his ear with her teeth. Yes, yes, yes. The words tumbled over him, falling away before he could release them. He could barely think with her draped over him; the smell and feel of her were so enticing that her words processed slowly through his increasingly aroused brain. And, his own words went unrealized. So, he acted – on instinct, trusting her to understand. He moved deftly to place her under him, and he slid his hand to the loose knot at the front of her robe. As he slowly tugged it open, he watched her eyes, tracking him, her chest moving rapidly – up and down, and then his own hand as he pushed the two sides of the material apart to reveal her. For a moment he could only look, awed by her. Then he reached out, touching her skin, gliding his hand slowly from above her pounding heart, between her rounded breasts, down her smooth stomach to her lower belly where he rested it, palm down, over the origin of her cancer. He looked up at her face again. Her eyes were fully dilated and intent on him, her mouth was parted. He could see the increased rapidity of her breathing.

“Red?” Her voice was low and nervous.

“I told you once that you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever known, inside and out. And, then I let you go. I ached for you. I was desperate for you for such a long, long time, and the truth is I didn’t … I didn’t even comprehend then the depth … the real value … of you, of your life. Only over time did I truly come to understand what I wanted, what I needed, and still I ran from it,” he stopped then and took a deep shuddering breath. “You are the most perfect gift, the grounding force of my life, Elizabeth …”

“Red,” she pleaded. He could feel the quaking of her through his hand, solid against her. “Red?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he asked, stopping, his voice deep and scratching, clawing, the words fighting to get out.

“What I am to you, you are to me,” she promised. She reached down and covered his possessive hand, squeezing it in her own. Then, she lifted it from her lower belly and placed his hand on her right breast. "Are you ready?"


	11. Happy, Lizzie?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks for hanging in there with this story. I have a plan - a conclusion - but, it will take a few more chapters to get there. I hope you stick around for the whole ride!!! Thanks for reading, commenting and leaving kudos!! They mean a lot to me! This chapter isn't very lengthy, but I wanted to get it out there, as the next part may necessitate a longer chapter. You are the best!!

She woke before dawn. The room was dark and quiet, her skin warm against the soft sheets. She slid her hand beneath the blankets, brushing her naked breasts on her way to him. Her fingertips reached his arm first, sliding slowly up to his shoulder, then down his back; he was lying on his stomach. They had moved in their sleep. He was further away now, or she was. But, he was there. Solid. Real. She felt his even breaths through her palm centered on his back. She had known of the scars, the reason for them, but before last night, she had never seen them. Before last night, there was so much of him she hadn’t seen. Her long, slow discovery of him had driven away her fatigue, her worry, her doubts – for a while she had just been a woman making love with a man. He had been every bit of what she’d expected, but more – loving and gentle and then, as they became better acquainted with each other’s bodies, passionate and demanding. She had been consumed with so much desire that with any other man she might have been embarrassed; she might have tempered herself. But, he wouldn’t let her. He wanted her eyes open, jaw unclenched, words spilling forth, hands guiding, hips moving in time with her own need. It – he – had been – artful. He had loved her artfully, masterfully, and she had felt brilliant, alive. 

Studies have shown human contact – love and affection – can save you. She had read some of the studies; she had been told of many others. And even though she had craved it, on occasion, she had pushed it away. She had pushed her boyfriend away abruptly and definitively more than a year ago; she had held her friends at bay. She had avoided touch initially because of her chemotherapy and the constant threat of infection. She had had to be careful. But, after a while, it had just become second nature. Look, but don’t touch – it had become her MO. But, something else had happened during the course of her illness; she had realized the touch she wanted, and it wasn’t available to her. The comfort she had sought couldn’t be found in those around her. She had wanted him, and now to have had him, to have him still, to have touched every part of him was almost painful. Hovering between relief and disbelief, it was almost too much – the intensity amazing and frightening. But, what had she conveyed to him? What had he taken from the experience? What had she given?

In the deep darkness, she now wondered how he had felt. Had she called up in him the same desperation he had in her? Had he felt awakened, beautiful and beloved as she had? His body’s reactions indicated that he did, but after his emotional declaration upon first seeing and touching her, he had said so little. His actions, his pleas for her to tell him, to show him what she wanted, had eclipsed almost everything else. He had been so giving, and she had received so wholly, so gladly that now she questioned what she had given him in return. 

Before the sun could rise, she needed to know. Before she stepped into the doctor’s office today, she needed him to know, to understand. She needed to make sure she had given back to him all he had given to her.

“Red?” She ran the back of her hand down his back over his rounded buttocks to the back of his thigh and back again in a slow caress. “Red? Wake up,” she whispered. 

“Hmmm. Lizzie.” He twitched slightly and turned his face on the pillow, so he faced her. She couldn’t tell whether he had opened his eyes. It was too dark to make out his features, but her hands knew their way. She woke him slowly and with a confidence and steadiness she had lacked last night. 

“Red, tell me what you like,” her voice had turned a husky honeyed version of itself as she felt him come awake under her ministrations. When he turned onto his back, his hand gently encircled the wrist of her questing hand, stilling her caresses momentarily.

“I like you,” he said, his voice as deep as she’d ever heard it. “Doing whatever your heart desires with me.”

“I want to show you what you mean to me. Help me,” she whispered. 

“Do you think I don’t already know?” His thumb found the scar on her wrist and rubbed it gently.

Her lack of a response caused him to bring his hand to her face, feeling his way in the darkness to her lips, which he traced with his thumb as he spoke. “I spent years wondering – what did you feel like; what did you taste like; what did you look like underneath all those clothes; where did you like to be touched; where did you like to be kissed; were you talkative during sex; were you spontaneous, adventurous; were you soft and gentle or were you hard and demanding or were you both; were you emotional, vulnerable, capable of the kind of intimacy of which I’d long ago given up? I felt guilty for wondering. I felt like it was a violation. It turns out, Lizzie, that it was just a waste of my time. It didn’t prepare me one bit for the reality of you. You are magnificent in every way – wonderful and generous, someone who makes her partner feel wanted and loved. You have already shown me everything I ever needed to know.”

He felt the wetness on his thumb just as she kissed him there softly. “Thank you,” she said, quietly, tears coloring her husky voice.

“Don’t ever doubt, Lizzie, what you have given to me,” he said, seriously before turning playful. “Now, if you insist I will tell you one little thing that drives me absolutely wild. Are you ready?”

She opened her mouth, a witty retort waiting on her tongue that she didn’t have the chance to speak before he flipped her onto her back and swooped down to kiss her. 

******************************************************************************************************************

An hour later they were in her car on the way to Dr. Laughlin’s office. She felt calm, at peace with her decision and extremely physically satisfied. And, she liked it. She sipped her coffee and ate her cranberry muffin, humming as she did. 

“Happy, Lizzie?” Red smiled. 

“The inn’s muffins are delicious.”

“Indeed they are,” he agreed.

“The view out my window is amazing.”

“It is.”

“The coffee is perfect.”

“Not bad, I’ll admit,” he conceded.

“And, you are an amazing lover,” she said, matter-of-factly, between bites of her muffin. “I feel terrific.”

He choked on his coffee, coughing and chuckling alternately. “Oh, I like that I am getting to know this side of you.”

“Hmmm. I am a lot of fun, Red,” she agreed, smiling at his profile. 

“That you are, sweetheart. The best kind of fun.”

*************************************************************************************************************************

When they arrived at the office, she held Red’s hand until Dr. Laughlin met her in the waiting room. “Red. Good to see you. Elizabeth, ready to get started?”

“I am.” She turned to Red. “I will be here a while. Why don’t you go home? Relax, unpack, work. I’ll call you when I’m almost done.”

“No. Lizzie, I’ll just …”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I’m okay. I have some magazines to read, some emails to catch up on.”

He searched her face and finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll be waiting for your call.” 

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

Three hours later she was done, but she hadn’t called Red yet. “Dr. Laughlin? Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he smiled as he sat in front of her on a rolling chair. He was unhooking her IV, cleaning up her arm and preparing for her departure.

“How do you know, Red?”

“Ah. So, he hasn’t talked to you about me, huh? Well, we go way back. Navy buddies. Then years of nothing until one day a woman who called herself Mr. Kaplan calls me. She works for Red, she says. He’s heard of my advances in cancer research and the need for funding. He gave millions, year after year. He is the main reason I can help you now. Funny how things work out.”

“Yes. Funny,” she smiled, quiet for a minute as he cleared things away. “Dr. Laughlin, how am I going to feel? Once this really hits me? I want to be prepared.”

“It’s hard to say, but my guess is not great. This is very aggressive; it has to be. I suspect by tomorrow night you’ll start to feel queasy, tired. In three days, you will likely want to throttle me, but lucky for me, you’ll be too weak to do it,” he joked. She tried to smile back, but it flopped. “It will be a rough ride, Elizabeth, but the chance to get well is there. It is on the other side of this, and that’s where your focus should be.”

“I know,” she nodded. “You’re right. This is my last chance. And, I want it to work. I want it more than I ever have.”

“Then we are off to a great start,” he said, patting her knee.


	12. Our first date

Lizzie had napped for several hours immediately after arriving home from treatment, claiming exhaustion and evading Red’s litany of questions about the therapy. Then upon waking, she insisted they do something he wanted to do. He, again, inquired about her time with Dr. Laughlin. She was not forthcoming. “Red, you told me you were staying, and that there were things you’ve waited years to do with me. Let’s start doing them.” 

It was a Tuesday afternoon, so for lack of a better plan and the inability to fly away at a moment’s notice, they went to an art museum. He told her he had always wanted to look at art with her, to see paintings and sculptures through her eyes. “Tell me what this one makes you feel?” “What is the first thing you thought of when you looked at this painting?” “Sit a minute. Just stare at it. Does it move you in any way?” “How?” “What is it?” “Why are crying?” “Do you find it very beautiful?” She had never experienced art that way, had never been asked to convey her instinctual emotional response about anything in that way before. It had felt so intimate and honest, another kind of joining. And, as they moved through the vast rooms in the building, she turned to him, linked her arm through his and began asking his opinion on pieces she liked and on some she didn’t. Afterwards, they went for ice cream – something she wanted to do. 

That night as they lay in her bed facing each other, she continued her inquiry begun in the museum, but now turned from art to intimacy: “What did you think of me when you saw me walk down those stairs for the first time in the post office?” 

“That you had grown into a beautiful woman. That I would have to work very hard to keep my distance, to keep myself from exhibiting any sign that we shared a past of sorts. I hadn’t expected it to be difficult, but the instant I saw you in person I knew it would be. Incredibly difficult.”

“Why?” Her hand rubbed his chest gently, her nails scratching him lightly. 

“You are disarming, Lizzie. I don’t think you quite understand how much,” he answered simply. 

“So are you, you know,” she said, her eyes warm on his.

“We are both, in our own ways, hard to ignore.” He pressed his lips together and sighed through his nose. “Will you tell me about this morning?”

She looked away from him. She knew his concern for her ran deep, understood it more every day he was there, but she needed to set some guidelines that she knew would prove difficult and ultimately unfair to him. 

She moved her eyes back to his worried face and smiled gently. “Red, I have been through this before. I know what to expect from it. And, soon it is going to get uncomfortable for me – and for you. I will likely feel nauseated, fatigued, emotional. I may need to be hospitalized. I may not be able to touch you or you me. If I get a cold, it may be life-threatening. I may lose my hair, although this more targeted approach makes that a little less likely. I may lose weight. I may begin to feel sluggish, stupid – chemo-brain. Other complications may arise. Then, we will have a short break, and do it all again, and again, and again. Until we can’t,” she took a deep breath, well aware of his growing agitation. “I know all of this, and I need you to understand it, too. To be prepared for it. Because it is awful, sometimes scary, sometimes depressing, sometimes other things. And, the truth is I don’t want to talk about it. I will soon live it, and if you stay here, so will you. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want our time together to revolve around this therapy any more than it has to.”

“Until we can’t.” He had stopped there. He knew what she had meant. He did. It was the elephant in the room, snuggled up nice and cozy between them.

“Yes,” she said, softly. “So, I would ask you if you want to stay here and witness this, be a part of this with me, then there needs to be only living – no talking about things we can’t control or change – no talking about the treatment beyond what is necessary. We experience things – do things; we talk about something else – everything else; we live everyday – until we can’t.”

“You don’t think this is going to work.” He swallowed hard, nodding at her. His voice quiet.

“It’s more that I can’t wait for it to. I can’t stop living while my body decides,” she answered. She moved her hand to his head, rubbing his short hair with her fingertips. He was no longer looking at her; his eyes had drifted down, his focus lost somewhere between the sheets. “But, Red? Hey? More than anything I want it to work. I do. I am going to fight harder than I ever have, and you’re going to help me. By just being here, you’re going to help me.” 

 

**********************************************************************************************************************************************

Over the next two weeks, her strength and energy diminished. Many of the side effects she had predicted had commenced. She was miserable, broken down inside and out. But, she carried on. It was Red who didn’t. He was appalled, angry, dismantled. It infuriated him to see her go through such a debilitating transformation in so short a time – to be in pain, to be so compromised. He questioned his decision in bringing this treatment to her. He railed against Chester, who absorbed what was hurled at him with compassion and understanding. If not for Dembe, Red would have ordered the deaths of countless offenders to his organization just because. He would have happily ripped them apart himself. He hurt for her, and it made him want to kill – for himself. But, he didn’t. 

As promised, he didn’t speak any of this to her. He hid it away, stuffed it down deep, putting on a brave face for her, a show – something he was schooled in doing; he had hidden the truth of his feelings from her for years. But, it ate at him. It took chunks of his insides and chewed them up, regurgitating them in his nightmares, in his quiet moments. He was tormented. But, he never considered leaving – not ever, not even for a second. Instead, he summoned the courage to live every minute he could with her. He faked it – trading terror for happiness. But, he wasn’t sure she believed it any more than he did. She was just too tired to call him on it. 

So, they did things as she had asked; they lived every day the best they could. They played chess – he won as usual, but she laughed and blamed her chemo-brain: “Finally, a good excuse for losing to you.” They watched movies in her bed – Spencer Tracy, William Powell, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Carole Lombard, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, John Wayne, Margaret O’Hara, and, of course, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant all made appearances. They ate anything and everything she wanted. They talked incessantly – as he’d promised. She learned more about him in those two weeks than she had in their whole year on the run. And, she reveled in his nearness, his constancy. She finally had what she’d always wanted. 

*************************************************************************************************************************************************

At the end of her first round of treatment, Dr. Laughlin tested her blood and scanned her. If there was improvement, she would have the evidence revealed to her and to her alone. She knew Red was trying so hard to hide his difficulty dealing with her illness; she knew what the experience was doing to him, could see it in his every movement. And, it pained her, so she hid from him, too. And, when Dr. Laughlin took her hand, looked into her eyes and told her in a neutral voice that there was no change, no improvement, she kept it to herself. However wrong that was, however selfish, she needed Red to stay strong, to have hope, to believe in what she was increasingly less able to – that she could get better, even a little bit. She could not accept his hopelessness, couldn’t be responsible for it. 

In her week off from treatment, she began to feel better. She was weak but no longer nauseated and exhausted all the time. “Take me somewhere,” she said one morning as they watched the sun rise on her back patio. 

He turned to her wide-eyed. “Where would you like to go?”

“Surprise me,” she said, smiling playfully. “Dazzle me.”

“I can do that,” he nodded. 

Inside of two hours they were on his jet. Everything had been cleaned and only the pilot and one crew member, both given clean bills of health by Dr. Laughlin, were allowed to fly with them. Their destination was kept a secret until landing, when she saw the lights; he had taken her to New York, a place they hadn’t been together since one of their first blacklist cases, when she had held his arm and dressed up and pretended. This time there was less pretending. He had arranged for dinner in the theater district then a play on Broadway, a comedy that had them both laughing within minutes. He had made sure to arrange for space between them and other people – no one sat near them at either the restaurant or the theater. Who he had to pay off to make that happen she didn’t want to know. It felt good to be out in the world – to look at the lights of the city, to watch the people, to hear their laughter, to internalize their energy, to feel a part of it again for just a little while. He had chosen very well – she was dazzled by the life around her.

Their hotel, near the theater, was beautiful and, again, cleaned to a standard befitting her circumstances. Weary but excited she stared out of the window, not wanted to lie down and miss anything.

“Lizzie, are you going to come to bed,” he asked, leaving the bathroom and walking to her. 

“I am,” she said, transfixed by her view, not turning around. “Thank you, Red. This was a perfect night. Our first date.”

His hands relaxed on her shoulders when he reached her, and he kissed the top of her head. “The first of so many. I’d like to take you everywhere I’ve ever been, to show you so many wonderful little places, the nooks and crannies of the world that are the places really worth seeing. We’ll do that, Lizzie.”

He watched her reflection in the window, the city lights an aura around her face, her sad smile. “Yes. We will.”

It was then he knew she knew something he didn’t.


	13. Together we are extraordinary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being wonderful!!!! And, I really think this might make a couple, or a few, or a bunch of you kind of, maybe, a little bit happy. I don't know. If so, though, let me know.

Red’s fingers instinctively gripped Lizzie’s shoulders tighter as he fought against the compulsion to whirl her around and demand answers. What did she know? What was she keeping from him? Didn’t she understand that he desperately sought the information she refused to share? That it was slowly tearing him apart to stand back and hide from her and have her do the same? 

“Red? Can I ask you something?” She was watching his reflection in the window. 

It took him a second to compose himself. He felt the twitches in his face begin their dance. “Yes.”

“I know these past two weeks have been extremely difficult for you – for both of us. So, I was wondering if – before I begin my next round of chemotherapy – you would feel comfortable being the honored guest at my dinner party. I haven’t seen my friends lately, and I’d like them to meet you. Cora can help get things ready. It can be small. I think it could be fun. What do you think,” she asked, turning around to face him. She had noticed his unease, felt it in his hands, was disturbed and perplexed by it. They were having fun; they were living well as they had agreed to do. And, she wanted to do something to celebrate him, to relax him, and to make him feel like the integral part of her world that he was. Introducing him to more of her life seemed an important next step. 

He opened his mouth to answer but instead only blinked rapidly and sighed. 

“What is it? You’re acting as if something is wrong,” she asked, frowning, touching his cheek lightly with her fingertips. 

“Is something wrong, Lizzie?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask a more pointed question. She stood silently for a moment, regarding him, before shaking her head and definitively answering, “No.”

“Then why does everything in me suddenly believe otherwise,” he asked, his voice a combination of hard and soft to her ear. 

She moved closer to him and solidly cupped his cheeks in her hands. When she spoke, she did so with authority and conviction: “Because you’re scared. You fear what might happen; so do I. But, we’re going to fight until we can’t, remember? And, right now, we still can. I am no worse than I was two weeks ago, Red. I’m no better, but I’m no worse. It took me a few days to come to terms with that. I should’ve told you sooner. But, there is nothing wrong, okay? I am still here. Still fighting. Now, what do you think about the party?”

That night they made love for the first time in almost two weeks. It was slow and tender and, in her playful words, “wonderfully impressive – movie-star-caliber love making.” She had been happy and sweet and talkative, and he didn’t have the heart to change the tone of the evening any more than he already had. She had said she was no worse. And, it had taken her days to tell him – that, in itself, telling. 

When she slept, head on his pillow, body pressed into his, he watched her and wondered about the concept of power, the illusion of it - his life had been altered completely with one phone call – she was ill, she was asking for him; everything that seemed to matter so much before that had been so easily discarded – shed like a snake’s skin. No matter what happened now he would never be the same again. He’d known that before he ever stepped out of the car the day he arrived at her house. And, now he wondered about the power of test results, of words, of cancer, of love, of healing, of death. She was no worse but no better, either. 

She had tried to spare him that information; he knew why, but when pushed, when faced with his fear, she had opened up. Had she sensed the imbalance of power? Known to hold all the cards was to cheat? He needed to find a way forward that allowed for more honesty and openness without compromising her wishes. He needed to take back some of the power he’d lost, so when and if the time came that she needed him strong and formidable, he would be. He had used the illusion of power to his advantage countless times. But, when the illusion falls away, we are left with our vulnerable selves, with truth, with reality. He knew, now more than ever, that it was easier but exceedingly unfair to pretend.

*************************************************************

In a couple days’ time, Red learned that Lizzie threw an excellent dinner party. He found it illuminating – shining a light on her life, placing her in the spotlight, bright and vibrant. Watching her weave her way in and out of the small crowd, talking, laughing, embracing her guests, making each one feel welcome and special, he desired his place to be in the shadows, as ever, where he could view her uninhibited, unobserved, unmoored. She had an ethereal quality – her pale skin and cream-colored dress made her appear an angel, otherworldly as she glided through the room. 

He didn’t know this Lizzie – this woman, Patty. Not really. And, oh, he wanted to. She was all he had ever hoped she would be, all he’d ever dreamed for her when he left her scared and helpless in the arms of his best friend. That small child was now a most beautiful woman who, unbelievably, against all natural law and the world’s expectations, loved him. He wasn’t sure what he thought of God and an afterlife, but he hoped for them that night. He hoped the divine existed, that it intervened sometimes, that it could be inspired to work a miracle, and that if the right evidence presented itself, the work human hands couldn’t do would be done. 

“Henry, come meet Allison and Mark. Allison and I worked together for several years. Mark is her terrific husband,” Lizzie smiled through the introduction, her hand resting on Red’s forearm. They had decided he would be Henry, her longtime friend who had lived out of the country for years until recently. 

Red shook their hands, engaged in pleasantries, walked them over to the kitchen where a bar was set up and made them drinks. He played the part of honored guest and host, both, easily. Lizzie loved watching him. There was no one like him. He could navigate any social situation, work any crowd, put anyone at ease, and entertain and engage at will. She admired him. He relaxed her, allowed her to enjoy herself and not worry about him. 

It was, by all accounts, a wonderful evening. Cora and her daughter stayed through the event helping with everything that needed it, and when the last guest left and the house was empty again, Lizzie turned to search for Red. She’d watched him slip away as she was saying her final good-byes. She found him in her backyard, suit jacket off, glass of scotch in hand, staring at the night sky.

“Hey. Everyone has gone home,” she said softly, approaching him. He turned and smiled, but his lips weren’t communicating with his eyes. “Are you tired? I wouldn’t be surprised; you did an amazing job tonight, Red. Everyone loved you. I knew they would.”

“You have a lovely group of friends, Lizzie. I enjoyed meeting them.” He took a sip of his drink and turned his eyes back to the stars. 

She came closer and stood behind him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “You make it look easy, Red. Meeting a whole new group of people, creating a narrative for them, and embodying that narrative. It took me a long time to feel comfortable as Patty. Until I realized Patty was just me, but somehow more me than I’d ever been before.”

“I think Patty is pretty terrific,” he answered, sincerely, his right hand clasped around her forearm. They stood together for a moment quietly. 

“You start your next round of treatment tomorrow,” Red finally said, his voice deep and smooth with scotch. “I want it to go well. I want you to be well through it, to be strong. I want to help you. But, I want you to know that I feel anxious and afraid. Terrified.”

“Red…”

“I need to share this with you, Lizzie. I know you don’t want us to dwell on your cancer. I understand that, but I can’t keep hiding myself from you. I did that for too long. It’s easy but wrong. I need to share with you, and I need you to share with me. Otherwise, we’re living with lies, half-truths, omissions. I don’t want that with you. Not anymore. Never again.” He kept his head tilted up toward the stars. She came around to face him.

“I don’t want you to hide from me. I never wanted that. I just wanted to have some normalcy with you, to know what it felt like to live with you, enjoy life with you. I wanted to feel like any other woman who had finally gotten the man she’d always wanted. And, I wanted you to feel happy. I didn’t want you to worry, to suffer.” She was desperate for him to understand. “I wanted this to be as perfectas it could be – even if it was for just a little while." 

He finally looked down at her upturned face. “We’re not like everyone else, Lizzie. We never have been. We’re better than normal; we are extraordinary. Together, we are extraordinary. But, you can’t shut me out. You can’t protect me. Not anymore.”

“Okay. I won’t,” she nodded. “I won’t.”

*****************************************************************************************************

The next round of treatment took a greater toll on her body. She lost more weight and needed to be hospitalized twice, where she received blood transfusions and treatment for anemia. At times her eyes looked vacant, and Red would hold her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles again and again until sleep descended. She slept a lot, but there were also times where she was wide awake and bored beyond belief. During those times, he read to her, they worked out crossword puzzles, he told her stories, they would go for short walks around the hospital, and she surprised him by revealing her ability to knit – he found her supplies at her house and brought them to her. 

It was a long, agonizing two weeks of treatment, but through it all, they talked, they shared, and they lived. They didn't hide from one another - not their fear, their anger, their despair, or their love. And, Red was right - together they were extraordinary. 

A few days after the end of her second round of treatment, Dr. Laughlin pulled his chair close to hers and held her hands and explained the outcome of her latest test results: slight improvement. She pulled her hands from his and covered her mouth with them, then her whole face. And, she wept.


	14. Home

Chapter 14

“Red?”

Slight improvement.

Slight improvement.

“Red?”

Improvement.

Improvement.

Improvement. 

“Red?”

“Elizabeth,” Dembe walked through the open French doors and into the kitchen of her house. 

“Dembe? Where is he?” She was out of breath and weak-kneed with excitement and an odd nervousness. She had driven home too fast, had even ignored two stop signs and a red light in her race to him, and now she was shaky. She looked beyond Dembe into the backyard. He must still be outside. Red and Dembe had been working that morning. Dembe had arrived before Lizzie left for her appointment. She had insisted on going alone, because Red had business that needed attending – things that had been put off for too long. She began walking toward the doors to go in search of him, but Dembe put his hand up to stop her.

“He isn’t out there. He was called away. He had to go, Elizabeth. He’s sorry. He wanted me to make sure you knew that,” Dembe looked grave. Something was very wrong. 

“What is it? What happened?” She asked walking toward him, concern marring her face, fluttering in her stomach.

“Jennifer. She was involved in a very bad car accident this morning.”

“What?” She leaned against the counter top for support, all of her barely contained excitement draining from her.

“He went to Chicago – where it happened. She lives there. He will call you when he can,” Dembe explained, his calm voice at odds with his worried eyes.

“How was he when he left,” she asked, swallowing hard. 

“Frightened,” Dembe answered, shaking his head.

“What do you know about her condition?”

“Not much. She was driving. A car ran a red light and plowed into her. She was already in surgery when he left. Carla called him as soon as she found out.” 

“Oh, Dembe,” she said, sighing, shaking her head. Red had been handling too much. Lately, she had been worried about his energy level, his eating habits, his lack of sleep. He was an excellent caregiver, but she had learned it was at his own expense. And, now, Jennifer. It was too much for him, for anyone. 

She began to pace the kitchen, her own fatigue sidelined for the moment. Her small victory suddenly inconsequential in the face of what might happen to Red’s daughter and, as a result, to him. She had just run a red light. In her haste to get home to him, she could have caused an accident. A perfectly healthy person, like Jennifer, could have been hurt by a very sick woman’s thoughtlessness.

“Elizabeth? How was your appointment,” Dembe eventually asked, having been staring out into the yard, as shell shocked as Lizzie. 

“It went well, Dembe. Thank you,” she answered, distractedly.

When she looked up, he was watching her, a very small smile on his forlorn face. She smiled softly in return, nodding ever so slightly. He nodded back, neither willing to speak of the good news without Red there to hear it. But, it was acknowledged. It existed. It was real. For the first time since being diagnosed with cancer, she had received news that made her hopeful, news that made her want to rejoice, news that made her feel like, maybe, anything was possible. And, she had so desperately wanted to share that news with Red as soon as possible. And now, she would wait for him. It could wait. She could wait. He was exactly where he needed to be.

*****************************************************************

That night as she lay in the silence of her dark bedroom, she contemplated her future. If she were to have one – and it was still much too early to assume that – what would it look like? For so long she had only planned for the end of her life, not its continuation. But, for just a little while, as she watched the shadows of trees dance on her walls in the light of a full moon, she wondered, she dreamed. Would she work again one day? Would she go on vacations? Would she get married? Would she live long enough to grow old? Would Red be a part of all of those answers? Would he want to be? He had come to her only because she had asked him to, and in a little less than two months’ time, he had managed to change the course of her life. He had made her see things a new way, made her open herself up to new possibilities, and forced her to face herself and to fight like she’d never fought before. 

That night she wondered about fate and destiny, and time and love. She wondered about the things that make us whole. She wondered about instinct and intuition, about gut feelings and grand gestures. She wondered about the seemingly inconsequential details of day-to-day life, of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Of finding the truth among all the lies we tell ourselves and owning it. 

She fell asleep waiting for the phone to ring. 

****************************************************************************************

At 3:30 a.m., he finally called. 

“Red?”

“Hi, sweetheart.” He sounded undone.

“How is she,” she asked, clearing her throat, sitting up in bed and looking at her alarm clock, heart pounding, afraid to know his answer. 

“She is … okay. She tolerated the surgery well enough. She is resting in the ICU right now. It is going to be a long road back for her, but we are confident now that she is going to make it. We are out of the woods.” She could hear the relief in his voice – gratefulness surrounded by exhaustion and worry. 

“I’m so glad. I’ve been worried, Red, very worried,” she said, overwhelmed with relief herself.

“Did I wake you, Lizzie,” he asked, concerned.

“It’s fine. I was waiting for your call,” she said, reassuringly. 

“The time change. I forgot. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I, uh, I was trying to wait long enough for you to be awake, and I forgot about the time difference. Go back to sleep.”

“Red. Don’t ever wait. Call me anytime, always. I want you to,” she stressed, her worry for him increasing. He sounded lost and so, so tired. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he assured, on a sigh. 

“You don’t sound like it. Would you tell me if you weren’t?” She questioned him gently, her hand caressing the empty side of her bed unconsciously. 

He stayed quiet for a long time; she could hear him breathing slowly, steadily through the phone. “Talking to you helps. It helps very much,” he finally answered.

She wanted to pull him close, to have him there, so she could comfort him. He needed it she knew. He needed her. And, she couldn’t go to him. She wasn’t healthy enough to go to him, and it made her feel helpless. 

“Lizzie, tell me about your appointment, the test results.” She detected something in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. It sounded like resignation; but, maybe it was just fatigue. Either way, the toll of everything had become too great; he couldn’t bear anything more. She had wanted to wait and tell him in person, but he needed to know now. 

“Three of the tumors have shrunk, Red. Dr. Laughlin was very pleased. He feels if we continue we may see more and more improvement. He’s … hopeful. And, for the first time in years, so am I,” she stopped to breathe then. It was the first time she had voiced the results, the first time she had put her hope out into the universe for it to be absorbed. 

He was quiet. 

“Red?”

It took her a moment, but then she heard it. He was crying. 

She understood. She did. She had had the same reaction. To receive such a gift – it was, it was more than the body and mind could take. It brought forth a tidal wave of emotion. And, to add to her news, Jennifer's survival - he was emotionally wrought. But, even understanding it, she couldn’t bear to hear him weep. “Red? This is good. This is what we have hoped for. Slight improvement, any improvement, is something to build on. It’s … it’s amazing. I’m amazed,” she was rambling, trying to soothe him, trying to do with her voice what she wanted to do with her body – to hold him. “I couldn’t wait to tell you. I rushed home to tell you. And, Dembe was here, and I’m so sorry about Jennifer. Please stay with her; help her, Red. But, just know that things here are … are good. I’m good. I feel really, really grateful. Really … happy.” She finally stopped talking. 

He still didn’t speak. 

“Red? Hey? Talk to me.”

She heard him sniff and what must have been his handkerchief scratching along the surface of his phone. After a moment more, he cleared his throat. “Elizabeth. I love you.”

**********************************************************

Red stayed with Jennifer for three weeks. He made sure she had the best care. He helped secure her a room in the foremost rehabilitation facility in Chicago and closely monitored her progress. He hadn’t had such consistent contact with his daughter since she was a small child. But, he was comforted to learn that so much of her was the same – her likes and dislikes, her habits, her manner of speaking – and being a witness to it, to her, was a miracle of sorts for him. He got to learn new things about her as well. She was an adult now with a life and a fiancé. She had opinions and a career. There came a point where she didn’t need him there watching over her anymore, and he understood. He had been so pleased with the opportunity to help her and see her flourish under such difficult circumstances that he didn’t complain one bit when she said, “Daddy, I’m fine. Go back to your life. Just come back and see me soon, okay?” 

He had grinned and kissed her forehead. “I absolutely will.”

Within two hours of Jennifer’s declaration, Red had boarded his plane headed for Oregon. He paced the aisle for much of his flight. He had talked to Lizzie every night during his absence. The first week she had been in such high spirits, the likes of which he had never been privy. She had radiated happiness. He knew her concern for Jennifer and for him was genuine, but it couldn’t mask her pleasure at her own situation. And he didn’t want it to; he wanted, needed to hear her joy, to revel with her in her progress. He had only wished he could be witness to it in person instead of just over the phone. He knew she had had lunch with friends, gone to the farmer’s market, visited the library, gardened, read a lot, cooked and, in general, enjoyed her week off of treatment and celebrated her good news. She was still tired, still slept a lot, but she felt good - and happy. 

Then she had begun her next round of treatment. And, for two weeks, their conversations had been brief and stilted; she had little to say. She had asked of his welfare and Jennifer’s, and when asked about herself, she had said she was fine; things were going as expected; there was nothing out of the ordinary to report. But, to him, she had sounded depressed; the crash from her elation had likely been a hard and fast one. 

He knew the physical toll the treatment took on her. Being away from her while she was undergoing it was difficult, more so as Jennifer recuperated. He needed to feel connected to Lizzie again, to be there for her. He needed to reassure himself that all was well with her and with them – as selfish as that seemed. He worried that she had tolerated his absence better than he had hers. He worried that with all she was going through she hadn’t had the strength to miss him. He worried that she had done just fine without him for so long that doing without again was easy. He also worried that he was thinking like a boy instead of a man.

But, the truth was he had missed her. Unbearably so. More than he had thought possible. He had so quickly fallen into a routine with her, a new life that was so unlike the one he’d lived for decades. And, it had been so easy – despite her illness and all that came with it, despite the time that had passed, despite everything. And now, he craved the normalcy she provided. He craved her touch, her scent, her body, her warmth, the sound of her up close. He needed to be close to her. And, it should’ve scared him – the depths of his need. But, another truth was that he had needed her for years. Only now she knew it. Only now he believed, hoped, she needed him, too. 

***********************************************************************************

When he arrived it was late. He let himself into the house and moved quietly when he noticed the lights were off. She would be asleep by now, he knew. During treatment, she slept most of the time. He went to the kitchen and washed him hands, got himself a glass of water, slipped off his shoes and sighed. Home. That’s what being there felt like. Home. The thought made his breath catch and his hands still. He felt like he was home. Finally. Well and truly. Home.

“Red?”

He turned to the soft, questioning voice. There she was, a vision in her white robe, looking so small, so thin, so pale, so tired. And, he let out the breath that had gotten stuck on a revelation and went to her.

She held out her arms to him and as soon as she could, she wrapped them tightly around him. “Oh, Red. Red. You're back. I have missed you. So, so much. I’m so glad you’re back. I’m so glad you’re home.” Home.


	15. Are you beginning to understand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks for your continued support of this story. At this time, I think there will only be one chapter after this one - two at the most. This chapter pleased me. I hope it does you, too!!

Chapter 15

Lizzie clutched Red tightly to her for a long time. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, felt him breathe against her, felt him pull her ever closer to him. She had waited weeks to soothe him, to be there for him as he had been for her over the past months. She wanted to show him how much she had thought about him and worried about him and missed him, how much she had wanted to be there for him to lean on when that was what he needed. She released him only to take hold of his hand and walk him to her bedroom, whispering as she walked, “Come to bed. Come to bed.” 

He saw that, though the lights were off everywhere else in the house, all was not dark – there was still the flicker of the TV; she had been watching a movie. “It’s ‘The Quiet Man’ with John Wayne and Margaret O’Hara. You remember it? We watched part of it together one night. A tough man whose tender side is brought out by a beautiful, brave Irish woman. I’ve been struggling falling to sleep lately,” she said in answer to his tilted head facing the screen.

“I remember it, Lizzie. I remember. Climb back into bed and keep watching. I’d like to shower quickly if you don’t mind. Then, I’ll join you, sweetheart,” he replied, releasing his hand from hers and smoothing her hair with it, stepping back far enough to examine her face. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her cheekbones looked more prominent than when he had left her. He looked down then to the opening of her robe, to her chest; her collarbones stuck out too far. How could she be getting better when she looked worse? 

“Red? Hurry, okay? I want you next to me,” she said, as he turned down her sheets and helped her into bed.

When she was comfortable, propped up by her pile of pillows, he leaned down and cupped her cheeks, rubbing his thumbs over her cheekbones delicately. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart. More than you could ever understand. I’m so glad to see you. So relieved to be back here with you.” He kissed both of her cheeks then and leaned back again, letting his eyes flit over her face.

“I can see you cataloguing me. Don’t. I’m okay. Go take your shower.” She pushed on his chest lightly. 

He frowned slightly, then nodded and headed to her master bathroom, instead of the guest bath he used to use. In the steam, under the cascade of hot water, he wondered: How had she really been these last weeks? Had she hid something from him? They had decided on nothing but truth with one another, but he had learned her desire to protect him was strong, something he still found so surprising, both warming and worrisome.

He hadn’t called to tell her he was coming back. He had left in a hurry, wanting to return to her as quickly as possible. While he paced on the plane, he had made many calls – some regarding Jennifer, some regarding his neglected business. Instead of calling Lizzie, he had thought of her on and on and on. Why hadn’t he called? As he stood there with soapy water running over his head and down his back, he thought he knew: he had needed to catch her unaware, to see her as unprepared as he had when he arrived at her door step that first day. He had needed her honest and unrehearsed; maybe because he was afraid, afraid of some hidden truth, afraid of where he stood with her, afraid of the future and all it could hold or wouldn’t. Afraid of himself and for himself. Afraid for her. Just afraid. 

What he got from her was an embrace full of love and longing, an invitation to her bed, a glimpse into her loneliness and need to escape it, and a first objective look at the physical toll of her cancer treatment. He hadn’t seen it before. Couldn’t. He had been too close. The truth was she wasn’t hiding anything. No. No. Two weeks of brief, vague phone calls couldn’t have been more honest. So, it was him. He was hiding something. 

After breaking down on the phone with her when she told him of her improvement, he had shored himself up. He had needed to be strong for Jennifer and to do that he had needed to get a grip on himself. He had gotten too overwhelmed, too emotional, too consumed with worry for the two people in his life that he needed and wanted the most. The threats to both of them were beyond his control. The Concierge of Crime, with his strings to pull, his illusion of power, could help, but he couldn’t heal. And, he hated the helplessness that squeezed at him. Both women were improving, but he wanted assurances; he wanted total healing; and he wanted it right away. But, this wasn’t business; it didn’t follow any rules; it didn’t answer to him. 

So, the waiting, the not knowing – they had taken a toll on him over these three weeks. That toll had worked its way into his bloodstream – metastasizing – affecting all of him. He had become a walking embodiment of anxiety, worry, fear and helplessness. So tightly wound. And, even as Jennifer improved, and he believed in her eventual complete recovery, he couldn’t quite let go of what had taken hold. Now, he knew he had needed to see Lizzie, too, for any improvement to occur within himself. He had needed to hold some sort of proof in his hands – proof that she was getting better. So, he hadn’t called. He had wanted to arrive guns blazing, yelling for proof to reveal itself – to show him evidence of Lizzie’s love, her improving health, her desire for him. A boy not a man. His behavior, his thought processes weren’t acceptable. He took a deep breath and slowly released it, pressing his forehead against the tile and closing his eyes. 

The water soon cooled, and he shivered. It was so late, and he was tired. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He knew she must be exhausted. He couldn’t believe she was even still awake – she was having trouble sleeping, she had said. All the time or only at night? He was taking too long in the shower; he needed to talk to her, to hold her. He turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. His clothes were still in her guestroom. He walked out of the bathroom back into her bedroom. She turned her head toward him as he made his way to her door. 

“Wait. Where are you going?” Her tired eyes were tracking him, assessing him. 

“To get some clean clothes.”

“You don’t need them. Please. Come lie down.” She patted the space next to her. As he made his way to the bed, she sat up and removed her robe. Then watching him, she slowly pulled off her white tank top and underwear. He let the towel drop to the floor and slid into bed next to her. When her fingers found his bare skin, she took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. When she was lying down once again on her back, blankets pulled up above her chest, he moved close to her, and lying on his side, he wrapped his arm tightly around her waist. He kissed her neck, exposed so nicely for him, and her cheek and ran his hand up and down her torso, humming near her ear. “You feel like heaven.”

“I’ve been lonely without you, you know,” she said, her hand on his chest, her eyes earnest on his. “I wish I could have been there for you – in person. Having you here is such a comfort, and I just wanted to be that comfort for you. I’ve worried about you, how you’ve really been. I worry that you try to be stronger than you need to be for everyone. And now, you seem … you seem … something. I don’t quite know what it is. Are you really okay, Red?” Her eyes, so blue, so beautiful, were clouded with concern. 

“Oh, Lizzie. I think I’ve just been away from you for too long. There are things I don’t handle well, things I’m still learning, Lizzie. About myself. About you. About us. I just needed to come back. It was time for me to get back to you.” He did his best to explain. 

“It was time for you to come home. I understand,” she nodded, linking her fingers with his and turning on her side to face him; he closed any gap between them. He couldn’t keep his fingers still, however, and soon squeezed her hand and lifted his away. He began trailing the back of his hand slowly across the expanse of her skin. As his mind drifted with the feel of her, he must have spent too much time near her jutting hipbones, because she began to stiffen and pull away, a prelude to words she was reluctant to say: “I’ve lost weight. I know. It’s been hard to eat lately; I’ve been nauseous a lot. It happens. I know it’s not attractive. It’s okay. It can be hard to touch, to look at. I know. So, I understand that you don’t …” Her words at first confused him, his mind so far from thinking along those lines. But, then, he began shaking his head.

“Please. Stop. Lizzie, please.” He rolled her back onto her back, so he could better see her face. “Don’t … don’t ever, ever think that I don’t find you absolutely beautiful. No. Don’t think that. It’s not possible. I worry for you. I admit that. The weight loss concerns me, but don’t ever think I find you anything less than stunning. You’ve changed since I’ve been gone, my dear. I am only feeling my way around the changes, mapping them, recommitting you to memory.”

He kissed her lips then – gently, lingeringly. “How is it that every part of you feels like silk?” His fingers traced from her jaw down her neck over her breasts. “The softness of your skin. It intrigues me. Consumes my thoughts.” His hand glided slowly down her stomach around her hips to the tops of her thighs, taking turns running down to her knees and back up. “I’ve been to China many times. I have felt and worn the world’s finest silks, Lizzie. They have nothing on you.” 

“You are very good at subterfuge, Red. You are very, very distracting.” She sounded breathless. He smiled. He had missed hearing her up close, especially when she sounded like that. 

“Am I? I think it is the other way around. And, this isn’t subterfuge,” he whispered, his voice deepening, his fingers behind her knee, moving back up her body. “I have so much I want to tell you, to ask you, but I can’t think beyond your soft, soft skin right now. Will you indulge me, Lizzie? Can you? How do you feel?”

“Better every second,” she whispered, licking her lips. “Alive.”

“Good. Close your eyes and listen to me.” His hand kept moving, waking her up.

“Okay.”

“I have wanted to touch you for weeks. I have thought about you, your body, how beautiful you are in the moonlight, in the brightness of the morning sun, in the dim afternoon, in the evening’s setting sun. I have thought about you incessantly. In every way. The sound of you. The feel of you. The look of you. I have thought about your graceful neck, your exquisite full breasts, your elegant arms, your trim, strong legs, your expressive, lovely face, your entrancing eyes. All of you a beautiful map, a mystery, a treasure, that I want to discover again and again and again. 

“Red …” She was beginning to squirm.

“Wait.” His hand moved between her legs gently. “Just one last thing. I want to make you feel as beautiful as I see you. I want you to understand. Are you beginning to understand?”

“Yes,” she sighed as his fingers began to move again. “Yes.”

**********************************************************************************************************************

They had overslept. It was her last morning of treatment, and she had slept right through it.

“Chester, I understand. She will be there in a couple of hours. She’s asleep, and she needs the rest. I won’t wake her. Take some time. I’ll call you when she wakes.” Red hung up the phone. It was 8 a.m. Lizzie usually woke hours earlier. He had left her in bed thirty minutes before. She had been curled up on her side facing him, her hand resting on his chest. She had looked so peaceful and content. He had kept her awake too late the night before, but their time together had been restorative for him, and he hoped for her as well. 

He made coffee, scrambled her some eggs, toasted an English muffin, fried some bacon, and within forty-five minutes, she appeared. Donning her robe again, her hair wound loosely atop her head, her face scrubbed clean, she smiled rather shyly at him from the doorway of the kitchen. “It’s nice to see you in here again, Red,” she said, biting her bottom lip. He walked over to her, placing his hands on her hips and kissing her soundly. “Good morning, you magnificent woman. Come sit and eat with me.” She chuckled at his enthusiasm. He was returning to her. He was relaxing. 

She sat at the table, her plate of food in front of her, and then she glanced at the clock. “Oh, my God! I’m late! I had to be there at 7:30. I need to call Dr. …” She began to rise, but his hand in the air stopped her. 

“Already done, Lizzie. Already done. He has been made aware of your need for sleep. We can be there as soon as you’re ready. Just enjoy your breakfast,” he said, calming her. She sighed and shook her head.

“You come back here, and everything goes awry,” she joked over her coffee mug, taking a small sip. “You keep me up too late, do all manner of wild and wonderful things to me, make me oversleep, make me forget all about my responsibilities … make me happy.” She grinned and took another sip of her coffee. 

“Oh, my dear Elizabeth. So saucy first thing in the morning,” he smiled at her as he took his first bite of breakfast. He watched her as he chewed, and after he swallowed, he told her what he had wanted to the night before, his voice suddenly quiet and serious: “You make me very happy, Lizzie. You center me, you ground me. Without you, I find I feel rather lost now. You feel like home, sweetheart. So quickly. It happened so quickly.” He shook his head slightly, tilting it as he watched her. 

“Not so quickly, Red. Not really. It just took us a long, long time to act on what we both knew.” She had placed her coffee mug on the table and stood. She went over to him and sat in his lap. Placing both hands on her face, she kissed him – deeply. When she pulled back, she traced his lips with her finger. “You are home to me, too.”

*************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

Her last treatment for the third round of chemotherapy went well. Red had a chance to talk with Dr. Laughlin at some length, something he’d wanted to do for some time but hadn’t, not wanting to step on Lizzie’s toes. She had invited Red in this time, however, and welcomed his questions, his observations. For the first time, she was letting him in on the intimacies of her therapy. His fears, his worries over her feelings for him, his place in her life were disappearing within twenty-four hours of returning. She was showing him his place – and it was beside her. 

Within days of that last treatment, when some of her strength had returned, he surprised her with a short trip to her favorite inn. “We missed Christmas together, Lizzie. I wanted to do something for you. I think we have reason to celebrate, don’t you? In a few days you will get another reading of test results. Chester is hopeful; he believes we will see more improvement.” She nodded as she looked out at the snow-covered mountains from the picture window in their room. 

She was quiet, though, too quiet. He came up behind her and kissed the top of her head. “What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking I didn’t expect to see this Christmas. I am thinking that I am walking into a new year, and I have no plans for it – no resolutions, because I didn’t expect to need any. I am thinking how lucky I am. Despite everything I have gone through over these last years, I am thinking I am so lucky, because without this awful illness, I would never have called you. I would have gone on alone. Wondering. Wondering about you. Living my life – working at a job I cared about, enjoying my friends, my community, my various boyfriends. But, I would never have really, really loved anyone. I would never have allowed anyone to get too close. I would have missed out on so much without this cancer. This awful thing that wants to kill me has saved me, too. And, it’s strange, isn’t it? How things happen? How the worst things in life can be transformed? How we can?”

“Yes,” he said, hugging her to him for a time, before turning her around to face him. “Lizzie, I think this is the perfect time to give you your Christmas gift. I don’t know how or if you are going to like it, what you’re going to think, but I was thinking of the future, too. And, the thing is if you don’t like it, well, I can’t return it, but we can discuss that later. It might have been an impulse buy, but it felt right. It feels right still. I think … I think it could be the thing that …”

“Red. What is it?” She laughed, putting her hands on his shoulders, trying to steady him and quiet his nervous rambling.

“The inn.”

“What? What do you mean, ‘the inn’.” Her eyes narrowed at him. 

He smiled hesitantly at her, biting the inside of his cheek briefly, and moving his head around in that way of his when he was about to embark on a tale. 

“Red?” Now, she was nervous. 

“I purchased the inn for you – as a gift.”

“You did what?! Red?! What about the nice woman who owns this place? The regulars? The, the caring of this place, the running of it?” She seemed horrified, and that was not what he had expected. 

“Lizzie, hear me out. The excellent owner of this fine establishment, Hilde, is interested in retiring. She just doesn’t have the money to do so. The deal I have made her will allow her to live comfortably for the rest of her life, and she can continue to work here, advising, welcoming guests, whatever she wants, indefinitely. This place never has to change. It can be just as it is now, but you will always have a room here. However, I was thinking – you are such a wonderful baker, and I have some rather impressive culinary skills myself. We could help here, we could put our stamp on the place. You have exquisite taste, and this place could use some decorating help, some sprucing up. No? You could spend as much or as little time here as you wish. You could transform it, make it into something really spectacular, if you wanted to. I have some ideas I could share, too. I have been thinking …”

“Red. Stop. Just stop,” she said sternly, pulling back from him and holding up her hand. “Are you telling me that you bought me my favorite place in the world? Not only so I could always enjoy it anytime I wanted to, but also so, as I recover, if I recover, I have a ready-made job in a new career for which you feel I am well suited? A job where you will be my partner? And, you have provided a more-than adequate retirement for Hilde, a wonderful and deserving woman? Is this what you’re saying?”

“Well, yes, in part, but Lizzie …”

She stopped him, capturing his mouth in a searing kiss. “Mmmm,” she hummed, when she finally pulled away, linking her hands behind his head, rubbing her thumbs along the nape of his neck. “You are not a normal boyfriend, Red. Not a normal boyfriend by any stretch of the imagination. You know that, right?” 

“I am much wealthier than most men, Lizzie. That’s true,” he answered, still unsure of her ultimate take on the gift.

“Much wealthier. Yes. You have more money than you could ever spend, I’m sure. That allows for grand gestures like this, and like a doctor devoted just to me. But, it’s not just the money; it’s the absolute perfection of your choices. You have given me a future. That’s the real gift, Red. A future. A life, a career, someone to share those things with – that’s the gift.”

He leaned in and kissed her lips slowly. “So, you like it, then? You’ll accept it? Remember, Hilde’s future hangs in the balance, too.”

She laughed out loud then. “Oh, you’re good, Red. Yes, I will accept this most thoughtful, wonderful, over-the-top gift. Yes.”

“Good. But, I have one concern,” he said, his brow furrowed. 

“Just one? What is it?” 

“I’m your boyfriend? You called me your boyfriend. I am working very hard to be a man here, Lizzie. At my age, I must be referred to as a man of some sort. Not a boy.” He was pouting.

“Well, hmmm. What would you like to be then, Red? What should we call you? My friend? My former co-worker? My savior? My partner? My lover? My companion?” As she talked she pushed him back to the bed. 

When he fell softly back onto the mattress, he brought her with him. “How about your husband?”


	16. Did wonders never cease?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you reading this story! I appreciate every last one of you so much! I hope you enjoy this latest chapter. Let me know!

Chapter 16

“It’s weird. This is all really weird. Don’t you think it’s weird? Seriously, Red? Don’t you think this is weird?”

“Elizabeth, please. You must stop using that word. It hurts my ears.”

“But, don’t you think it is?”

“I am … uncertain how to respond.”

“But, you do know what weird means, right?”

“Please.”

“Hey, Red?”

“Yes, Lizzie?”

“We’re married.”

“Yes. We are.”

“You are my husband.” 

“Yes.”

“That is weird to say.”

“Sweetheart, honestly, you sound like a girl in junior high.”

“Well, honestly? That’s kind of how I feel.”

***************************************************************************************************************

Much Earlier 

When he said, “How about your husband,” Lizzie had laughed and kissed him, still reeling from their conversation about the purchase of the inn. But, when he had deepened that kiss, then flipped them over and looked at her with such raw emotion as he loomed above, she realized that he might not be joking. 

“Red,” she had whispered. “What are you saying?”

“What I’ve been thinking since I walked through your front door that first day – I can’t leave you again.” He shrugged his shoulders, in what looked almost like defeat. “I can’t.” He looked … unprotected, exposed. And, she wanted to shield him. She did. Because for all he was and wasn’t, he had always protected her, always put her before himself. And, never more than now – cancer treatment, his loving care of her, the inn and now this.

“I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t ever want you to leave me,” she said, and as soon as the words fell from her mouth, something snapped, and she was pulled back to the night of her farewell party, the night before she had left him for such a long, long time. How she had felt then, the pull, the ache to stay, the reluctant acceptance of the inevitability of going. Her eyes quickly filled with unexpected tears. She bit her bottom lip and turned her head to the side, unable to look at him any longer. The tears fell, despite her efforts to hold them back. And, as they slid down her cheeks, she closed her eyes. He moved off of her then and sat up, pulling her up with him and holding her close. 

“Sweetheart, what is it? I didn’t mean to upset you. I certainly didn’t mean to turn this wonderful day into something … unhappy … for you.” He rubbed her back and kissed her hair and smoothed it. He tried to soothe her, but she had become temporarily inconsolable, crying as she hadn’t since she thought he had left her house during her nap that first day he came to her. This cry was punctuated with “I’m sorry” at intervals, but no further explanation could fit itself in. 

When she finally got a hold of herself, she said into his neck, her lips rubbing against his sensitive, now damp, skin, “I’m afraid I’m going to be the one to leave you. Again. Ten years ago I left, and I didn’t want to go. I wanted so badly to stay. And, now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it again. I don’t want you to leave me, but you should, Red. You should. I should make you go. Now. Before it’s too late. Because, if you don’t, and you stay, I will probably leave you again. Even if I don’t want to go. And, I won’t. I won’t want to go.”

His eyes widened when her meaning finally sunk in. Shrinking tumors, slight improvements still weren’t cures, they weren’t remission. Those things loomed in the distance, beyond the horizon. The journey to them would be long and arduous. And, they had just begun the trek. Neither knew what to expect, what was to come. They could only hope. 

“Lizzie, you said you wanted to live each day and not dwell on your cancer and its treatment.” His deep voice rumbled in her ear, vibrated inside of her. “We are doing that. We are doing an excellent job of that; we are extraordinary at it. Don’t let fear take hold. Not now.”

He pulled back and caressed her upper arms, dipping his head to capture her eyes and hold them with his. “I want you to be my wife. I have wanted that for years, for so long it’s hard to remember when I didn’t. But, it seemed like an old man’s fantasy, or a young boy’s, depending on the day. The idea only lived in my head, never, ever meant to see the light of day, to be spoken to another. It was my most well-guarded secret. The night of the party when I kissed you? I thought I had finally done it – that I had shown you the truth, that you would find me out. So, I walked away – quickly. I cannot explain to you how hard that was to do, the searing, lasting pain it caused. But, now, to think that long-held, deeply buried secret fantasy could possibly become a reality – even for a day, a week, a year? I want it. Whatever time we have? I want all of it. Don’t be afraid to leave me. Don’t ever be afraid. You need to know that I want you, absolutely, until the very, very end. This is the best way I know to show you that.” He stopped then, his eyes a maelstrom of fear and hope. He swallowed and waited, his confession a proposal, his hope a fairy tale.

She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She was a mess. She needed a tissue. She needed to wash her face. This wasn’t how she had envisioned it, not even a little bit. Not in any of her daydreams. And, she had had them – dreams of him, of them. But, they were never like this. No. No. This was better, so much better. He was better – better than every leading man in every romantic movie she’d ever mooned over. Better than every happy ending she had ever cheered over, cried about, and longed for. It was everything she’d ever wanted but better, because it was real, and it was him. Finally, well and truly, him. 

“Okay,” she nodded, smiling, taking a deep breath and sniffing. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” He seemed perplexed. 

“I would like to be your wife for the rest of my life – however long or short that is, I want it. I really want it. Yes. Yes.”

“Okay, then. Okay.” He cupped her face with his hands and wiped her fresh tears and kissed her, slowly, confidently, skillfully – better than any movie star could ever hope to do. 

*************************************************************************************************************************************

 

Raymond Reddington was a shrewd businessman. His global empire was no accident, he was no flash-in-the-pan mogul. No. When someone agreed to a deal, he wasted no time cementing it, getting the papers signed, money transferred, etc., etc. A mere handshake never replaced a contract; someone’s word didn’t replace a signature on the dotted line; that method only left one open to problems later. It was best to handle things swiftly and with the utmost attention to detail. It turns out a wedding, a marriage proved only slightly different. The client had more influence, without a doubt, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. So, when Lizzie agreed to marry him, he compressed the timeline between engagement and wedding to such a degree it gave up and walked away. 

He called Dembe and asked him to bring his gray suit and Lizzie’s cream dress – the one she wore at her dinner party weeks before – to the inn. He also asked Dembe to put a rush on getting him the necessary documents to become – when needed, and in this case it was, – a man named Henry Redmond, and to get the necessary marriage license worked out. Lizzie wanted wildflowers in winter, so Red made sure that happened as well. Lizzie wanted Cora there, so Dembe would have the pleasure of a companion on his drive to the inn. And, lovely, soon-to-be-retired Hilde would perform the ceremony, a common occurrence at the inn. 

It all only took a matter of days, during which Lizzie tried to rest, still tired from her illness and now the excitement of the impending event. Red worked out his deal with Hilde, learned more about the inn and the area than Lizzie ever knew, and began a process he did not share – extricating himself from his business. He could not be the Concierge of Crime and Lizzie’s husband; that he knew. She had asked him, soon after he had arrived, about his safety, the risks to doing business. He hadn’t told her that over the years those risks had been significant, that he had had many close encounters with death. He hadn’t told her that sometimes he welcomed those risks, willfully walking into danger over and over again. But, those days were past now. He could never work so hard to preserve her life only to continually risk his own. The process of turning over the reins of a global empire was not quick or easy. It would take time and careful calculations on his part. But, he had begun to pull away, and soon he would explain to her all that meant.

The day of their wedding, he had left her early in the morning – with a brief kiss, a small smile and a sigh. Cora had arrived to help do Lizzie’s hair and fuss about her clothes. By 11 a.m., it was time to go downstairs for the ceremony. Cora had left her by then, too, telling her to take a minute. Alone, Lizzie stood in front of the antique full-length mirror in her room and looked at herself – at her hair pulled up in a beautiful French twist; at her pearl necklace, something Sam had given her when she was a girl; at her simple cream dress that Red said he loved the look of; at her pretty heels. Then, she looked, really looked, at her face. She was a thin, pale forty-one-year-old woman sick with a persistent cancer who had looked better. She was a woman who had endured hardships and had a complicated and secret past. She was a woman about to be married under an assumed name to a man with an assumed name. It all sounded bad or sad or something else along those lines. But, when she ignored her pasty skin and prominent cheekbones and only looked at her eyes, she knew she was so much more than those things. Her eyes told a story of something else. She was an independent, successful, kind, respected, well-loved woman. She was a woman who had fought for her life, struggled with her choices, always hoping to do better, to be better – in everything. She was a woman who had loved but never as wholly as now. She was a woman who was happy. She was a woman who had hoped to have what she now did, the thing that made her eyes shine like they did when she was a young woman. She was a woman ready to meet her husband. 

The short ceremony took place in front of the fireplace. It was replete with tears and smiles and nervous laughter and a soft kiss and applause and champagne. The group enjoyed a special lunch prepared by the staff, who though better known for their breakfast, truly excelled any time of day. 

By late afternoon, Lizzie was embarrassed to find her eyes slipping shut as the group sat around the fire finishing the last of their cake and coffee. She felt a hand squeeze hers and opened her eyes. His kind eyes met hers. “Let’s go upstairs, sweetheart.”  
Once in their room, he helped her undress and within minutes she was asleep. He watched her as he undressed – her elegant hair coming loose around her face as she settled into the pillow; her soft, steady breaths moving the down comforter only slightly; and her left hand, resting above the covers, shiny with diamonds and gold. His beautiful girl. His lovely, lovely Lizzie. His wife. He put his hand to his mouth, somehow embarrassed, despite the solitude of the room, at the size of his smile, the laughter bubbling up in his throat. My God, did wonders never cease?


	17. I do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find there are still a few chapters left to this. Thanks for reading as ever!!! You are the most wonderful, supportive group of readers!! Thanks for all the comments and kudos, too. Keep 'em coming!

Chapter 17

“I feel like there is still so much about you that I don’t know. That even though I have known you for a long time, so much of it was spent with secrets, so much of it was spent apart,” Lizzie said as they lay in bed on their wedding night. It was shortly after midnight, and she had come awake three hours before after a long sleep to find him next to her. Waiting. Watching. Wanting. They hadn’t left the bed since, except when Red started a fire in the fireplace. Now, in the glow of that fire, she traced his left hand with her fingertips, passing over his wedding band again and again in her ministrations. 

“Well, isn’t that part of the fun? Learning a little bit more about each other every day? That is one of the joys of married life, I think. It wouldn’t do to know everything all at once,” he pondered, his voice low and deep and so very relaxed. The sound of him made her shiver. She pushed herself closer to him under the covers, entwining her legs with his. 

“Red? I love what I know about you. All of it. The good and the bad. I wouldn’t change a thing.” She raised her head from its place on the pillow and pressed her lips against his, softly, slowly. When she laid back down, she placed her head on his pillow, so they were lying almost cheek-to-cheek, both on their backs watching the fire dance.

“I look forward to learning everything there is to know about you, Lizzie. Every little detail. And, I hope it takes years, so every morning I wake up to a new discovery.” 

“What will our life look like?” She traced up his forearm, tickling him in the process. Ah, something new. Already a discovery. 

“Whatever you want it to, sweetheart. Whatever you want it to.” His eyes had begun to close. He had been awake since dawn, making her wedding day perfect. He had done all of it, while she had only looked on, and she loved him for it. She continued to lightly pass her nails up and down his arm; he seemed to relax by degrees under this kind of touch. His breathing evened out. And, as she watched his face, he drifted to sleep. 

*********************************************************************************************** 

Coming home after such a life-transforming week and a half away proved disconcerting, at least for Lizzie. She unpacked her bags and immediately napped, her schedule thrown off too long. Red spent the afternoon working, focused and intent on some goal she was too tired to question him about. The next morning, she would be going to see Dr. Laughlin, receiving more test results, and the anxiety of that superseded her interest in Red’s business dealings. 

They had been married for four days now. She had delayed her appointment with Dr. Laughlin to spend some time with her new husband, and now not only would she have test results within the next twenty-four hours, but she would also soon thereafter have to begin another round of treatment, something she was not looking forward to doing.

  
She wanted to exist – for just a little while longer – in the comfortable, warm bubble in which she now found herself. She wanted to simply enjoy her new situation, bask in her happiness, and just be a newlywed. But, their brief honeymoon was over, and her daunting reality loomed like a zephyr overhead, eclipsing everything in its path. And, she knew that soon she would be too tired and sick to ask the questions that sat impatiently at the back of her mind like unruly school children, all wanting a chance to be heard. 

The questions kept coming, unbidden, over the past few days, and she hadn’t even considered any of them before she’d said “I do” to him. Would they live in her house permanently? Would he prefer something bigger, fancier? Would he prefer to live in another city? Would he travel often on business? Would she meet his daughter at some point? Did his daughter even know of her? Would they visit his other homes around the world, spend time in them when she could travel? What about the other women in his life, the ones he’d reluctantly spoken about at her urging? Would he be informing them of his nuptials? 

There were so many things they hadn’t talked about and still so much she couldn’t do because of the restrictions placed on her by her illness. There were limitations to her existence that gave her pause, made her nervous. And, before she embarked on her next round of chemotherapy, she wanted to ease her mind about some of the things that kept nagging at her. 

******************************************************************************************************

When she awoke from her nap, she was chilled and hungry. It was already very dark, and when she glanced at the clock, she was surprised to find it was 8 p.m. She had been asleep for at least five hours, and it was well past their normal dinnertime. Red must have felt she needed the rest more than a meal. She got up, stretching and pulling on a warm robe over her thin t-shirt and yoga pants, and went in search of him. She was surprised to find him in the dining room, standing over the table, a mass of papers and a laptop in front of him, a phone pressed to his ear. He hadn’t changed clothes, and she didn’t smell any dinner cooking; in fact, she glanced up to find the kitchen dark. He had been doing whatever he was doing for the past five hours. 

“I don’t care what it takes. I want you to get it done and quickly. This is too important to wait. And, if I have to get on a plane tonight to handle it personally, I will. But, the outcome won’t be to their liking. … Keep me informed. … That is correct. … Thank you, Simon.” Red laid the phone on the table and bent down to peer at the computer screen, clicking at the keys. He had yet to notice her. His phone vibrated almost immediately upon his setting it down. He picked it up, eyes still on the screen. “Yes. … I see. … That is unfortunate. … Two hours.” He set the phone back down.

“Red?”

He jumped slightly at the sound of her voice and turned toward her, a soft, indulgent smile on his face. “Lizzie. How was your nap?”

“It was fine. What are you doing?”

He stepped away from the table and closed the distance between them. He placed his hand on her cheek and kissed her forehead gently before stepping back. “How about some dinner? It must be time for that. You must be hungry.” He looked around him with some surprise.

“In a minute. Answer my question. It sounds like you are going somewhere.” She searched his eyes for more answers than he would likely voice. 

He clenched his jaw and blinked rapidly for a beat before his face settled. “I have some business I need to attend to. It won’t take long. I plan to be back in time for your appointment tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?” 

“New York.” He said, nodding, biting his cheek. Something was wrong. 

“Red, tell me what is going on.”

“All is well, Lizzie. There are just some things that I need to handle personally.”

“You are keeping things from me. I don’t need to be married to you to know that. But, I am married to you now. And, I want you to tell me what is going on.” She was angry. He sighed.

“Let’s go to the kitchen. I’ll cook a quick dinner while we talk,” he said, placing his palm at the small of her back, guiding her gently to the darkened room. 

As he warmed soup and chopped vegetables for salad, he confided in her, albeit reluctantly: “I have told you that my business had grown over the years, Lizzie. I have taken risks that have paid off; I have sought opportunities in new areas to great success. My touch has been – at the risk of sounding like a cliché – golden. I am worth … a great deal of money. In the world that I have been inhabiting, I wield a lot of power and influence. And, over time, I have laid to rest many enemies, but, unfortunately, I have amassed many more. At times, things have gotten … precarious. My life these past ten years has not been without peril, without … life-threatening complications. I’m trying to fix that now. I will. So, I have to be in New York for a bit – as part of that effort.”

She sat on a barstool, her elbows on the countertop, her eyes on him. She opened her mouth to speak, but soon snapped it shut, her lips pressing together to form a thin line. She shook her head, cutting her eyes to the left, to look at anything else but him. In the silence, he watched her, he waited. But, she continued to say nothing. He dished out the soup and salad and placed both in front of her. He served himself and came to sit beside her. 

When she still did not move, he prompted her: “Eat, Lizzie. I hear your stomach rumbling. Please, eat.”

She didn’t make a move toward the food or to look at him; she just laughed hollowly. “This whole time … this whole time I have been worrying about the wrong things, haven’t I? I have worried about my illness, it taking me from you; I have worried about how you would hold up helping me through this and how you would manage if I died from it. When, really, the threat – the more immediate threat – isn’t from my cancer. No. It’s worse than that. It’s something beyond you or me.” She stopped then, putting her head in her hands. When she did continue to speak, her voice came out muffled and despairing: “I feel like I’ve been duped somehow. Like someone has played a cruel joke on me. Like you have. And, I’ve let you.”

He didn’t touch her. “Nothing is going to happen to you, Elizabeth. Nothing from my world is going to touch you.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, behind her hands. 

“I am making sure of that. I wouldn’t be here if I thought it would endanger you.”

She lifted her head then and looked at him – hard and cold. Fear crawled up his spine and settled at the back of his neck. “Do you think that is what I am concerned about most? Huh?” Her laugh at her own question was bitter. “What about when something encroaches, Red? Will you walk out and leave me? Will I have to wonder whether I will ever see you again? Will you, as before, protect me at all costs? Meaning you will leave me if necessary or send me away. You said you would never leave me, that you couldn’t, but the truth is you will – if you have to. And, what about you? Your safety? I can’t help you. I can’t protect you. I don’t even have a gun, or the strength to shoot one if I did. So, what? We now have cancer and your enemies at our door; it’s just a matter of who will bust it down first.”

She moved to stand up, but he put his hand on her arm. “Are you going to walk away without allowing me a chance to talk to you, to explain?” 

“You have a plane to catch, don’t you?” She shook his arm off and stood. 

“Why are behaving like this, Elizabeth? You know who I am. You know I have been working. You know, better than almost anyone, what my business is like. And, you also know I would never hurt you. I would never marry you only to leave you.” He stood, too, and moved himself in front of her, blocking her path down the hallway. “Not leaving you is the reason behind everything I have been doing for weeks. I am transitioning out of my own empire, my own creation, criminal as it is, for you. Because nothing matters to me more than you. But, you need to give me time to do it.”

She tried to sidestep him, but he was quick on his feet, and she wasn’t. She tried a second time and failed again. “Move, Red!”

“No.” He pursed his lips. 

“Get out of my way!”

“No.”

She pushed him then, square in the chest with the force of both of her arms, but she got no purchase. He didn’t budge. “Get out of the damn way, Red!”

“Lizzie. No.” He was calm – and warm and solid and leaving in less than two hours. 

“Damn you, Red. Damn you.”

“It’s going to be okay. I promise you,” he stepped closer to her cautiously. When she didn’t back away, he enveloped her in his arms. “I promise.”

She stood rigid against him until he squeezed her a little tighter. Then, she wrapped her arms around him and held him but only for a moment. When she let go and moved back, she looked into his eyes. “I am afraid for you, and I can’t help you. Do you understand how that makes me feel? I can’t protect you. I am as far from being Agent Elizabeth Keen as I’ve ever been. And, I am afraid. I am afraid you will be hurt and taken from me. Do you know what it’s like to feel so helpless?”

His eyes never wavered on hers as he nodded almost imperceptibly. “I do.”


	18. When, Lizzie. When

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are nearing the conclusion of this story. Thanks for hanging in there!!! You all are the best!

Chapter 18

“I’d like to go with you,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes and worked his mouth before responding lowly: “That is not a good idea.”

“You said you planned to be back in time for my appointment tomorrow, so let me join you. I will stay out of the way. Out of sight.”

“Lizzie, no. No. I don’t want you anywhere near this. It’s too …”

“What? It’s too what? Dangerous? Too dangerous, Red?” Her eyes were wide with questions, with stubbornness, with something akin to incredulity. “Yes, well, that’s why I’m coming. Because I believe you will protect me at all costs – like you always have. I believe you love me as much as you say you do. I believe, if I am near you, you may think twice before risking your life. Think of me as your insurance policy. Having me near will insure that you take your own safety seriously. My safety will equal yours.”

He set his jaw and pursed his lips. This woman. He watched as a tiny smile broke out across her face. She had him, and she knew it. “You are not as far from Agent Keen as you might think. Not very far at all,” he said, shaking his head, and turning and walking down the hallway toward their bedroom. “Get ready. We leave in an hour.” 

 

*********************************************************************************************************************

He conducted his business in the middle of the night in a swanky hotel suite in Midtown. As agreed upon, she stayed out of sight – in another suite in the same hotel, at the opposite end of a long hallway. She made no appearance outside of the room. She did not call him, text him or in any other way (through Dembe or others in attendance that she knew from over a decade ago) inquire about him during his three-hour meeting. She also did not sleep while she waited. She paced the floor, digging what she imagined to be a foxhole for a miniature army into the luxurious carpet, her path trod over it again and again in her anxiety. During those hours she imagined many things – some wild and fantastic, some more reasonable and likely. 

In all likelihood, Red would emerge looking as fine as ever in his pristine suit, tired but successful, clicking his tongue and shaking his head at her worry. But, the other, more fantastic scenarios that unfurled in her overactive brain were far less palatable. In them, she smelled gunpowder and the iron tang of blood, she heard yelling and the bang of furniture against walls and guns discharging. She saw red stains and dripping sweat and heaving chests and pale skin and closed eyes. She understood that all was not imagined, that some of what she was doing was remembering, remembering events of long ago, some so long buried they felt new again, causing her to gasp at their intense assault on her senses. 

She remembered Red’s life – a life that she had shared for a brief time – as ruthless, unforgiving, privileged and painful, decadent and dangerous. It was hard for her to believe he was still living in that reality, or had been; he seemed so very far from the scary but alluring criminal she had met chained to a chair like a wild animal, far from the debonair protector that had taught her how to live as a fugitive, distant from the patient man who had painstakingly coached her on transitioning back into the world as someone else. He had come to her months ago like out of a dream, separate from any reality but her own – the safe cocoon she had created for herself – and he had assimilated quickly. As she paced, she reconciled the man she had married with his past and the parts of his present from which she stood separate. She had told him she loved every part of him, and she did, but truth be told, some of him frightened her; it always had. And, that was something she had to live with, too. 

 

*********************************************************************************************

 

The meeting went as Red had hoped – there was “no funny business” he had told Lizzie after it was over. Meaning, “no one got killed”, she countered. He only tilted his head and quirked his lips. He was exhausted. The plane ride home was quiet. She had persuaded him to stretch out on the jet’s long sofa, putting a pillow on her lap and patting it. “Come by me, and lie down.” When he finally acquiesced, she rubbed his head, her hand hypnotic in its back and forth motion, lulling him to sleep. She leaned her head back against the seat and slept with him, until Dembe touched her arm gently to tell her they were about to land. 

After disembarking, they went directly to see Dr. Laughlin. She felt oddly calm during the drive and as she sat in the doctor’s office waiting for him to gather her test results. Somehow being with Red, being near him as he worked, had pacified her. She had felt … useful, supportive, present. Being there for him gave her a measure of purpose. She couldn’t have helped him if things had gotten hairy, but she now knew that no matter whatever else her future held, she had a place beside him. It felt right. She wouldn’t be sitting home waiting for news of him if she could help it. She didn’t have to be helpless, and, neither did he. 

“Elizabeth. Raymond. I hear congratulations are in order,” Dr. Laughlin swept into his office and shook both of their hands, looking genuinely pleased. 

“Thank you, Chester,” Red said, patting the man on his shoulder as their hands connected.

“Yes. Thank you.” Lizzie smiled. Their first encounter with someone at home since their wedding. It made their new situation all the more real. 

Dr. Laughlin sat in his chair, took a deep breath and opened the manila folder on his desk. “Shall we get started?”

 

****************************************************************************************************************

 

“Will I meet your lady friend when we go?”

“What?”

“The woman you see there. Well, the woman you used to see there. Will I meet her?”

He narrowed his eyes and lifted his head off the pillow to better see Lizzie’s face in the darkened bedroom. She was propped up on her elbow, peering down at him, but he needed to be just a little bit closer when he answered her. “No. I don’t think that would be wise.” He lowered himself back onto the pillow.

“Why not? Are you concerned about what my reaction to her will be? Are you worried that I won’t handle myself well in front of her? Are you worried I’ll be jealous?” He ran his finger along the spaghetti straps of her tank top as he took his time answering her questions. She raised her eyebrows in anticipation. She looked like a younger version of herself when she did that. That inquisitive young agent that could never let sleeping dogs lie. And, he couldn’t help but chuckle at her. Oh, the baser emotions. She still had not mastered them all. He understood. 

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I would not be worried about you at all. I would only be worried about her.” 

“What?! Red!”

He chuckled so hard at her outrage that he started coughing. When he calmed down, he gazed at her again through watery eyes. “Oh, Lizzie. You would scare the hell out of her.”

She flopped onto her back. “I don’t think I want to go to Argentina with you. Go check on your vineyards alone.”

“Absolutely not. I can’t wait to show you around, my dear. I - we - have horses. Did I ever tell you that? A stable full of them, and I know which one would be perfect for you. Carmen. She is magnificent. Graceful and gorgeous. A bit of a handful. Oh, but she is hard to scold, Lizzie, lovely as she is. Why, the two of you will be two peas in a pod.”

“Funny, Red,” she answered, sighing. “I can’t wait to go. Truly. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been anywhere far away. In the past ten years, I’ve only left the U.S. for the Caribbean a couple of times and Mexico once.”

“With men, I have no doubt.” He turned on his side to face her, she turned to him as well. 

“Yes, with men.” She gave him a small smile. They gazed at one another for a moment.

“Lizzie, I will admit to you that I don’t like to think about those men you lived with and loved, those men that got to gaze upon you in barely there bikinis on tropical islands. I will admit to some jealousy. That first man you got serious about after we parted – the one in New Orleans – he is the reason I stopped checking on you. I couldn’t watch that relationship unfold; I couldn't watch it prosper. I just couldn’t.”

She looked at him, this serious man, his wrinkles telling a story as much as his words. He had lived a long often difficult life. For decades, he had rarely let his emotions get the better of him, to affect his work. But, she knew now that she had never been work to him. She learned that more every day. 

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” she said, leaned forward to kiss his lips. When she pulled back, she caressed his cheek. “I like our pillow talk. It’s my favorite part of the day.”

“Is it? Tell me why.” He brushed her hair off her cheek and moved it behind her ear.

She smiled shyly for a moment and shifted her eyes to the mattress. “It’s intimate. I have all of your attention, which I crave, as loathe as I am to admit it. I tell you things. You tell me things. You touch me. I touch you. It leads to making love, which I want. Even when we don’t, when we can’t, when I am too exhausted and sick, I want to,” She looked up at him then. “Oh, Red, I want to be able to make love to you well. I want to be healthy and show you … I want that experience … If I get well …”

“When, Lizzie. When.”

“When I get well, when I have more energy, watch out.” She smiled conspiratorially at him. “There are things I want to do for you, to you. There are things I am really good at, Red, things we haven’t even tried yet. But, when I have the strength, the stamina, oh, we will.” 

“I can’t wait,” he smiled, his eyes growing heavy-lidded, her declaration arousing his relaxed body, causing him to unconsciously shift closer to her. “Lizzie, this is the long game, remember? Every day we discover more, we improve, we move forward, we heal. And, trust me, sweetheart, you have all of my attention all of the time.”

“So, you don’t think about the Argentinean? What is her name?”

“I don’t think about her, no. I can’t remember her name.”

“Liar. And, Madeline Pratt? Do you think about her?” She practically spit the name. He shifted closer to her, her body warm, her face flushed.

“Never. Maddie and I are through.” His hand pushed her shoulder ever so slightly, and she fell softly to her back.

“Maddie,” she said with disgust. He moved over her and kissed her neck. 

“I hope to never lay eyes on her again.” He kissed her jaw. 

She huffed at that, and he lifted his head, his eyes bright. “Kiss your husband, Lizzie. Please.”

*****************************************************************************************************

She was getting better. The tests proved it. She didn’t feel it yet; she was in the midst of more treatment. But, the results didn’t lie. She was getting better – slowly but surely. And, they were making plans. When her current round of treatment ended, they would go to Argentina for three weeks; Dr. Laughlin and his nurse would join them – as a precaution, and, hopefully, more as a vacation. In the meantime, Red continued to both cut ties and tie up loose ends in his business. The work was difficult, taxing and time-consuming. He and Dembe began working out of an empty office next to Dr. Laughlin’s, in the building they had rented in its entirety months before. Cora helped with Lizzie more often, and her friends visited regularly. They kept in touch with Hilde, who was training her assistant to become the inn’s next manager. Their lives developed a rhythm. There was stability, a sense of home and family, and a future. 

Lizzie had learned that Red didn’t want a new house in a new town. He was quite content to continue on in Lizzie’s comfortable home if she was. They had the inn, as well as his many homes around the world, and that was quite enough for him. He did, indeed, want Lizzie to meet Jennifer, who did know of Lizzie’s existence and her father’s recent wedding. When both women were well, a meeting would be planned. All of her questions, all of her concerns, he addressed. There was little that they didn’t agree upon; their compatibility was sure and solid. It was only his going away on business, which he did twice during her treatment, that distressed her; it was only the side effects of her treatment, which included fatigue, nausea, anemia, and one short hospital stay, that distressed him. Beyond those concerns, which were by no means trivial, they were happy; they were hopeful; they were enjoying their time together each day, learning what this new life of theirs looked like, what it felt like, what it meant.


	19. Coming to terms with living

Chapter 19

The trip to Argentina shined a light on Red’s life – who he had been, at least in part, over the past ten years, how he had lived and the people he had spent time with and loved. But, it also shined a light on Lizzie – her insecurities, her doubts, and, ultimately, her desperate desire for a full life, a long life, one so intertwined with Red’s as to be seamless. But, her recognition of that desire wasn’t its realization. Only time would be. And, did she have enough of it? That worry plagued her, casting a shadow wide and tall over much of their time away. Now that her health was improving, she had become greedy; she wanted to be well, whole. So, rather than being grateful for her slow progress, she had become impatient and, at times, frustrated, angry, depressed and sullen. It was not the trip Red had hoped to give her; it wasn’t the trip he had wanted for himself, in all honesty. For all of her acceptance of her impending death, Lizzie was now clawing desperately at life, and the results of that were not pleasant. 

**************************************************************************************************************** 

Red hadn’t mentioned that his home was really an estate set on several hundred resplendent acres deep in the heart of Argentina. He hadn’t mentioned that he had an impressive working horse ranch and that it and his vineyards employed nearly fifty people who lived along the edges of the grounds in homes also belonging to Red. He hadn’t mentioned that the main house – because there were guest houses, too – employed a full staff eager to serve Red, his guests and his new wife. He had also failed to mention that his employees revered him as some sort of charismatic, benevolent benefactor whose presence was cause for celebration, whose homecoming constituted a party, complete with several rousing local bands, lanterns strung in trees, fireworks, an overabundance of delicious food, more alcohol than Lizzie had ever seen in one place, and people, so many people. 

They had only arrived that morning, and by nightfall, the festivities had begun. There were women and children who hugged and kissed Lizzie, men who smiled happily and danced with her, employees who fought to serve her and talk with her for just a moment. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be a beloved queen or a rock star. She wondered, weirdly, if this was what it had been like at Woodstock – so much love and happiness, good will and camaraderie. She wondered if she was tripping on some sort of drug that had been slipped into her wine unbeknownst to her. It was a heady experience – to be so welcomed by strangers, to feel so instantly loved and accepted, to feel, if not be, revered by those around you, to know that your words held weight, that your smile lightened hearts. It was magical, really. Surreal. 

She fell into bed at nearly 2 a.m., though some guests were still laughing and toasting one another, though Red was, and the band still played softly on. She was lying on her belly, her head burrowed into the soft, goose down pillow, her body sprawled on top of the blankets and sheets. She had stripped her clothes away, lying down in her bra and panties, too tired to find a nightgown, too tired to pull the covers over her, too tipsy to care. The bed cradled her gently as her head spun just a little. The lights were off, and the French doors were flung open, a gentle breeze billowed the sheer curtains. The balcony beyond the bedroom was large and outfitted with a café table and chairs, perfect for her coffee in the morning, her tea in the afternoon. 

It was all perfect. So very perfect. She sighed. This was her life now, or it could be. A fairytale. Beautiful and happy. She felt like a queen to a small kingdom, her king somewhere beyond, telling stories, having a good laugh, enjoying one last cocktail, finishing a fine cigar. The magnitude of this life was so far beyond her own. This life felt uncontained, vast, limitless, all abundance and splendor. 

This was his life. Red’s. The peaceful part of it anyway; the part she got to see only brief glimpses of the year they spent together. This was the life afforded to a decades-long magnate who peddled passage for criminals, asylum for the unforgivable. But, no more. Now, he was an innkeeper in Oregon, and a wine-maker, a horse farmer, a kind neighbor, and a most respected employer in Argentina. What else would he be? What would she? What will our life look like? Whatever you want it to, sweetheart. Whatever you want it to. She fell asleep to the strumming of a lone guitar and a warm breeze tickling the backs of her thighs. 

 

***********************************************************************************************************************

When she woke the next morning, she was covered up to her neck in sheets and blankets, and her breasts were bare under the covers. She opened her eyes hesitantly, squinting against the bright light shining through the open balcony doors; he wasn’t in bed next to her. Had he ever been? Her head pounded in time with her heart, and her mouth was dry. She hadn’t had too much to drink in years, but hangovers felt quite the same as they ever had. She groaned and stretched her tired limbs. She didn’t feel like a queen today. No. She felt like something else altogether, something not to be celebrated. 

She finally sat up, covering her chest with the bedsheet. She was alone in the room, and mostly naked. But, this was her house now, too; she had to keep reminding herself of that. She wasn’t a visitor, an unwelcomed or unannounced guest, or anyone’s mistress. This morning it was hard to remember her place here. She couldn’t even remember how to find the kitchen. But, there was a master bathroom just a few steps away, and she was desperate for a shower. 

When she finally found Red nearly an hour later, he was in deep conversation with a man outside the stables. She had managed to find the kitchen, where the cook, Esmerelda, fixed her coffee and toast. She also had taken pain relievers for her aching head. Before heading outside, she had even tracked down a pair of sunglasses she had packed – everything had already been put away in drawers and closets by someone. It was like staying at a luxury resort, but today, unlike last night, she wanted to go home, the fairytale now overwhelming. 

When Red saw her approaching, he excused himself from his conversation and walked toward her. His broad smile quickly faltered at the look on her face. “Lizzie. I was coming to check on you. It’s almost noon. Are you feeling alright?”

“Not really,” she admitted, trying to smile back at him, but failing. “No.”

He nodded. “Walk with me, sweetheart.” He steered her toward a stone path on either side of which was a white picket fence. She saw the horses in their pastures. So many of them. They all looked glorious. The sun was warm on her back; it was the perfect temperature outside. And, the sky was the most vivid blue. She sighed. It was all so wonderful. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he encouraged, sounding slightly strained. 

“Nothing is wrong. Everything is amazing, absolutely incredible,” she answered, linking her arm through his; she still walked slowly, she still needed support. 

“Do we need to go visit Chester,” he asked. 

“Oh, no, Red. No. I’m okay. Slightly hungover, maybe, but otherwise, I am physically fine.”

“Then, what is it? What’s bothering you?”

“Last night I felt … so free. So amazed and awe-struck by all of this, by the people, the place. I felt alive, completely alive – for the first time in so long. I felt the energy of … of everything, and it was so powerful. But, today? I feel … I don’t know … homesick, maybe … or something like it. Maybe, just jet lagged, maybe just too much alcohol. At the risk of sounding ungrateful or childish, I feel sad, slightly anxious, oddly exposed. I feel like I should go home, like I shouldn’t be here. And, I don’t know why I feel this way. I don’t want to. But, I do. I do. And, more than anything I feel afraid. But, I don’t know why or of what.”

He stopped walking and leaned against the fence. He placed her in front of him and kept his hands at her waist, rubbing his thumbs against her sides. “It’s okay if things are hard sometimes. There will be periods of adjustment – for both of us. Our lives have been very different from one another’s for many years, Lizzie. Because of your illness, your life, by necessity, became smaller. My life, by necessity, has remained large, scattered. Adjusting to life in Oregon took me a little time. You learning how to navigate in some of my cities, in my homes will take time. But, everyone loved you last night, sweetheart.” He chuckled then and shook his head. “I have never seen such an outpouring of affection in my life.” 

She smiled then and meant it. “Are you kidding? These people love you, Red. They really love you. Do they throw parties like this every time you show up?”

“I haven’t been here in a while, Lizzie, and I have you with me, so last night was not the norm. But, yes, we always have a nice celebration when I arrive. They enjoy it. It gives them something to look forward to, and for me to, as well. This is the place where I’ve spent the most time over the past decade. It is the closest thing I’ve had to a home. I want you to be comfortable here. I hope … in time … that you will learn to love it like I do.”

“I will; I already do really; I just need to be able to relax and allow myself to feel it,” she said, sighing and looking over his shoulder at the land spread before her. “How can you be content with my way of life? How can you be so willing to settle down with me? In my small house on a regular middle class American street in a small town in Oregon? How can you do that? Why would you?”

“Oh, Lizzie. It is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Without a doubt the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” He turned then and pointed across the field in front of them. “Can you see her, Lizzie? Carmen. She’s yours. Tomorrow or when you feel up to it, I will introduce the two of you.”

She followed his finger and found the horse grazing. She was regal, caramel colored with a blond mane and tail. Shiny and splendid. She hadn’t ridden a horse since she was ten, when Sam paid for her to have riding lessons. That lasted about a year, but she was fickle then – her interest waned, she moved on to something new – volleyball or girl scouts. But, now, seeing that powerful creature, she found she couldn’t wait to reclaim the pastime. 

“Tomorrow. I’ll feel better then. Right now, I want to rest, maybe sit on the balcony of our bedroom and just take it all in. Will you join me for a little while?” They began to walk again in the direction of the house. 

“I would love to.” He began to relax as he felt her settle. 

After a moment, she remembered to ask: “Red, did you even come to bed last night?”

He turned to look at her, mild amusement brightening his face. “I most certainly did. I undressed you – a bit. I put you under the covers. I talked to you, and you responded – albeit with one word answers. You don’t recall any of that?”

“Huh. No, I don’t remember any of that,” she frowned, trying to recollect his coming to bed. 

“Maybe you were drugged.” She turned to him, her eyes wide, her mouth opening to respond. 

“I’m kidding, sweetheart. You did drink a lot of my wine. It’s terrific, isn’t it? So smooth.”

“Indeed, it is,” she sighed. “Too smooth. Like its creator.” 

*********************************************************************************************************

She tried to recapture the magic of their first night in Argentina. She tried. She tried to find her footing there. But, the more she tried, the farther away she moved. Instead, she stayed in bed until at least noon every day, missing her beloved mornings. She declined Red’s invitations to join him at the vineyard, to meet his sommelier, to participate in wine tastings. She declined dinner invitations with Red, and with neighbors and friends as well. She declined to swim in the beautiful swimming pool, to walk the grounds, to visit the stables. She slept, she sat on the balcony, and then she slept some more. She also declined to visit Chester. The night of that party had given her a glimpse of life – at its fullest, at its happiest, at its best, and seeing it, feeling it, had terrified her. Her desperation to live had morphed into an overwhelming fear that she might not. And, that fear paralyzed her. She was at a loss as to how to climb out of the abyss she had fallen into. So, for two weeks, she remained primarily confined to their bedroom. She knew Red was concerned, but so was she. So was she.

********************************************************************************************

“Chester, I am not sure what to do. Short of forcing her from the bed, forcing her to get outside, I have tried everything I know to try. At first my prodding, my encouragement made her apologetic, then it made her angry. I like her angry, Chester. I understand her angry. But, I do not understand her like this. She is depressed – exhausted, quiet, dull. This isn’t Lizzie. I want you to see her.” Red paced the living room of the guest house where Chester was staying. 

“But, she has expressly told you she didn’t want to see me, correct?” 

“I am past the point of indulging her, Chester. She may be very sick. She may be getting worse. Something has changed. I need to know what it is. I am demanding you see her!” He raised his voice, threw his straw hat down on the coffee table. He was losing his hold on his emotions; he was letting this setback, if that’s what it was, affect him to the point where he was no longer objective, no longer helpful. 

“Raymond, sit down,” Chester said kindly, gesturing to a chair in the living room. 

Sighing, Red complied, clasping his hands in front of him when he was seated, bowing his head.

“I know you have been there for Elizabeth through all of this, but unless you have gone through it yourself or, as I have, been witness to countless people going through it, it is almost impossible to fully comprehend what the body is being made to do. To tell you the truth, I am amazed by Elizabeth. The strength she’s exhibited, the resilience, the energy. For God’s sake, she began a romance and got married when – to put it bluntly – she was very near death. This is a powerful woman, a strong woman, Raymond. But, even the strongest person, will bow under the weight of this struggle eventually. Give her the space to feel what she needs to feel, to work through whatever this is. 

“We tested her blood just a few days ago; she is the same. There has been no worsening of her condition. But, the change of scenery, the climate, the travel alone – it might have been enough to set off her exhaustion, her mild depression. I have seen patients like her before. She had accepted her fate, Red. She had likely spent a great deal of time coming to terms with dying. A person goes through stages that result, eventually, in acceptance. She had reached acceptance on her death. Now, if I were to make any conclusions based on her behavior alone, I would say she is trying to come to terms with living. Oddly enough, it is scary prospect, an almost overwhelming one.”

“So, she is not sicker? You can confirm that?” Red needed confirmation. 

“She is not sicker.” Chester stood, and Red did the same. “Go about your business here, Red. She’ll come around. But, if she doesn’t, that does not mean this experience was a bad one. No matter if she were home, at the inn, or here, this was likely going to happen. It is part of the healing process. Right now, everything points to Elizabeth getting better, recovering. Just focus on that.”

*******************************************************************************

Red took Chester’s advice. Lizzie moved through the days as she wished. Red did not hover. He did not ask her too many questions. He pretended all was well. He tended his business, as Chester suggested. He mingled with the locals, his friends. He explained that his wife had cancer, that she needed her rest. It was the truth, and somehow saying it helped him come to terms with the reality they were living. She was his wife, and she was sick. As much as he wanted her to be well, as much as she wanted to be, she wasn’t, not yet. 

With six days left of the trip, he was walking back to the house from the vineyard in the afternoon. By this time of day, Lizzie usually could be found on the balcony of their bedroom with a cup of tea. He wanted to join her; he wanted to spend time with her even if she said nothing, even if she ignored his presence. She never turned him away; she never spurned him, but she did little more than squeeze his hand when he joined her in the afternoons, her worst part of the day. She tended to be most responsive at dinner and for a while after, until she decided she had had enough and retired for the night. It was a new schedule, but it had become predictable, if unwelcome. 

As he neared the house, he gazed toward the balcony, hoping to catch her eye and wave, announce his presence, but she wasn’t there. When he entered the kitchen, he inquired of Esmerelda as to Lizzie’s whereabouts. He was told she had left the house nearly an hour before wearing riding clothes. He couldn’t have been more shocked. Riding clothes? She had not mentioned any interest in riding, nor had she visited the stables that he was aware. She had barely ventured outside for two weeks. He made his way there as quickly as he could.

When he neared the stables, he saw her – a blur across the field. Lizzie, her hair flying behind her, astride Carmen speeding toward the horizon. He couldn’t breathe, trapped between joy and terror. She was going too fast. She wasn't an experienced rider. She didn’t know Carmen well enough. But, she was out of bed. She was outside. She looked good on that horse. She looked confident. She looked alive.


	20. Together, we are definitely something else, Lizzie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! It has been such a pleasure writing this, and then to receive such kind feedback has been a wonderful added bonus. Many, many thanks for your comments and kudos. Each one matters to me! I look forward to season three of the show - hoping for good things!! Until next time ...

Chapter 20

When he arrived home, he smelled them – before he even opened the front door. He moved stealthily toward the kitchen, hoping to catch a glimpse of her unaware. She now moved with an ease that thrilled him – from the counter to the oven, from the oven to the window ledge, from the window back to the counter. She wore a fetching apron over her tight yoga pants and slim-fitting long-sleeve t-shirt. Her feet were bare, and she had flour in her hair and just a smudge on her cheek. Her hair was pulled into a loose bun, but stubborn pieces had fallen to frame her face. Her lovely face. She looked happy. She looked content. She looked so much like he’d found her that first day when she had opened her door to him. He had been terrified to see her again then, to knock on her front door; he had been so afraid of what he’d find. He had wanted to turn away, to have Dembe drive him back to the airport without so much as a glimpse of her. Oh, but he’s so glad he didn’t. 

“Hey there, movie star. Your eyes look a little glazed over,” she said, smiling and moving toward him, wiping her hands on a white kitchen towel. “You’re back earlier than I expected.” She got close enough to move her hands around his neck, clasping them securely at his nape, and then kissing his lips with gusto, once, twice, three times, humming her approval as she did so. She pulled back and reached for his hand, pulling him toward the window. “Come here.” She walked him right up to the large backyard-facing kitchen window, slightly open so the cool fall air slipped in. She held his hand tightly as they both looked at her creation sitting on the window sill. “A year ago today you came here, because I asked for you. I finally asked for you, because I was sick, because I needed you, because I couldn’t wait anymore. Thank you for coming, Red. Thank you … for everything.” She turned to him then and grinned. “So, in celebration of you coming here one year ago; in celebration of us, our life together; and in celebration of our collective health, I have baked you blueberry pies to mark the occasion. There are two more in the oven.”

He grinned back at her, even as tears stung the backs of his eyes and made his nose itch. “Oh, Lizzie. Thank God you called, sweetheart. Thank God for that.” It took him a moment to collect himself, a tide of emotion threatening to pull him under. But this was a happy moment. She wanted a happy moment, so he cleared his throat. “Now, please tell me we will be eating this pie for dinner,” he said, their first dinner together one year ago, a dinner ten years in the making, still vivid in his memory. 

She slipped her hand from his and wrapped her arm tightly around his waist, clasping him to her. “Absolutely. In front of the TV with ice cold milk. Like last year.” He nodded enthusiastically. She was his sentimental girl. But, as he began to move away, hoping to change into more comfortable clothes for dinner, she held on. “But, Red, this year, we are also having filet mignon, asparagus and a green salad with our pie. I’m too hungry for pie alone to satisfy me.” She squeezed him once more before letting him go. “Now go change. Everything is almost ready.”

************************************************************************************************

In the seven months since their return from Argentina, so much had changed. Lizzie’s tumors had disappeared. She continued an oral regime of medication prescribed by Dr. Laughlin, and she continued to see him regularly. Her cancer treatment would not officially end for a number of months still, but her prognosis was excellent, the experimental treatment a resounding success. With Red’s backing, Dr. Chester Laughlin was in the process of building a world-class cancer research center and treatment facility in Oregon, where his experimental treatment would be made available to patients all over the world. Lizzie had been patient zero, and though she could not be in the limelight herself, her story, her journey, was the stuff of countless papers featured in the foremost medical journals and the topic of numerous lectures at premier hospitals and universities on nearly every continent. She had served a greater good, which was an unexpected, humbling, and most welcomed outcome of her illness. 

After those difficult weeks in Argentina, Lizzie had bounced back, her ride on Carmen the first clear indication of that truth. She spent the rest of her time in South America making up for her self-imposed seclusion. She rode Carmen every morning, tasted wine after wine, walked the grounds, swam in the pool, dined with Red, dined with new friends and neighbors, and learned about her new home and the people living there. She would learn to love it as Red did. She knew that. Being there showed her something – the joy of life beyond the limited scope her illness had imposed. There was still a world out there – she had caught glimpses of it in New York with Red; it had whet her appetite, raised the blindfold, but Argentina had overwhelmed her senses. She wanted more, she wanted all of it, she wanted to soar and scream and dance and make love like she used to. There was so much to feel, so much to still be felt. But, after two weeks spent wishing, pining for those things, she finally remembered something – her power to go out and seize them.

She never looked back after that. They prolonged their stay in Argentina by two weeks, so Lizzie could fully enjoy the place. It was well worth it, they would both enthusiastically agree, if for nothing else but that last day. Oh, that last day. Lizzie woke vibrating with an energy she hadn’t felt in years that final morning. She crackled like a live wire, her nerve endings alive and tingling in anticipation. She felt light, lithe, and amazingly sensitive, the friction of the sheets against her body overwhelming. She felt absolutely whole and filled with a want that was almost foreign in its intensity. “Oh, God.” She turned to her unsuspecting sleeping husband, curled on his side facing her, and ran a sure hand down the length of his body. “Oh, Red, you need to wake up. I need you to wake up. Those things I told you I wanted to do with you, those things I’m so good at. Oh, Red, we’re about to do all of them.”

To say Red was pleased with the turn of events would be an understatement. To say she wore him out would be crude. To say she felt more like a woman, more like herself, afterwards would be insufficient. Instead, they agreed it was best to say very little and to do more. And, they did. The flight home was delayed twelve hours. 

******************************************************************************************************************

 

Back in Oregon, Red resumed his work of passing the torch of his empire – no easy task. He had been working toward that end for more than a year. Progress was slow but surer with each passing day. A late night request from Lizzie had him vowing to never kill again with a caveat – if her life was ever in danger or the lives of anyone else close to him, his protection was to be expected. To Lizzie, this was more than fair. She wanted his protection, part of her love for him included his ability to make her feel safe in his presence, to feel beloved, and assured that nothing, nothing, would harm her if he had something to say about it – not even cancer.

Red put his energies into securing additional funding for the cancer center, working with Lizzie on plans to repair and upgrade the inn, and tending – from afar- his business in Argentina. He also sold many of his homes around the world. Lizzie wanted a simple life, and when he finally laid out all of his assets for her, she had to sit down and “take a moment.” In the end, they agreed the bulk of their time would be spent in Oregon and Argentina, but keeping his vacation home in Hawaii seemed reasonable enough. They had the inn and the office building in Oregon, out of which Red and Dembe, and, on occasion, Kate Kaplan and others now worked. Red had interests in other legitimate businesses, so he was busy, which he liked. His keen mind needed to exercise, his skills needed to remain sharp, because for him the world would never be a completely safe place. There would always be enemies. 

Red set up trusts for Lizzie, for Jennifer, for those close to him and instructions to continue to fund the charities close to him and to Lizzie, particularly the cancer center. He left instructions for the inn. She balked when she realized he was revising his will, talking to his people about the future, about the inevitable.

“Why does this frighten you, Lizzie? I’m merely updating a document that has existed in one form or another for many years.” She had come to his office one afternoon after her visit with Dr. Laughlin and was put off by the attorney she had found there and the topic of discussion. 

“It shouldn’t. I’ve had a will for years, too. For good reason. I just don’t want to think about you … about you … about anything happening to you. It’s silly. I understand the realities, the fragility of life. I know how fleeting all of this is. I know how very lucky we are. How grateful I am for you, for my life. I just don’t want to think about this ending.”

“Then don’t. We live each day fully. We make plans. We have fun. We learn more about each other. This is what life is supposed to be. This – what we have – is the hope of every person. To be loved, to be understood, to be celebrated, to look forward to each day, never wanting it to end. We should never want it to end. If we did, we would be doing something wrong.” He rose from his chair behind his formidable desk. He took her hand and led her to the door of the office. He grabbed his coat and hat and opened the door. “Shall we go home, my dear? I was hoping for a sunset on the back porch with some of our wine.”

********************************************************************************************

Lizzie met Jennifer. She and Red went to Chicago for a celebratory dinner. Jennifer had gotten married in a small, quiet ceremony that Red, because of who he was, did not attend. 

“Lizzie, relax. She is going to like you. You will like her, too. It will be fine,” he said, as he straightened his tie in the mirror. She came out of the hotel bathroom wearing what he thought was the perfect little black dress. “You look lovely, sweetheart. Come. Let me help with the zipper.”

When she rested in front of him, his touch gentle on her back, her eyes meeting his in the mirror, she admitted her fear. “We are close in age, Red. She might find that off-putting.”

“She knows your age, Lizzie. Trust me when I tell you all will be well.”

And, it turned out, he was right. Jennifer, a grant writer for a number of non-profits in the Chicago area, was unassuming, intelligent, quick witted and, in appearance, much like her father. Her wavy sandy blond hair and green eyes, the tilt of her head, her smile, her mannerisms were so much like Red’s that simply seeing her made Lizzie want to weep. He had reclaimed something fundamental when he had found Jennifer, a part of himself that he needed to move forward with any sense of peace in this life. Lizzie had never seen him so delighted, so genuinely content and happy as that night. She knew, for him, that dinner table held all he held most dear. So, she got over her anxiety and enjoyed the evening. The conversation flowed easily; Jennifer rivaled her father in her storytelling abilities, and her new husband was kind and friendly. By the end of the night, Lizzie was beyond relaxed, and felt something settle deep within her. This was her family now, too. She had lost Sam, but had gained friends, great friends, over the years. And, now to add this family to her circle? She felt grateful, a part of something special and new and exciting. 

******************************************************************************************************************

As she wiped a bit of blueberry from the corner of his mouth with her thumb, following it with a gentle kiss, she turned toward him on the sofa. She watched him continue to eat his pie. Raymond Reddington. The Concierge of Crime. Her life-long protector. Her friend. Her lover. Her husband. A year after his arrival at her door, Lizzie marveled at where they were, who they were to each other now. So much had changed. So much had not. He was supposed to be her last thing, and well, in many ways one could say he was. It wasn’t what she had expected, what she had planned. No. He had a way of turning her well-laid plans on their ears. This was better, so much better. 

After he put his plate down on the coffee table and wiped his mouth with a napkin, he turned to her, furrowing his brow in question at her gaze. “Do I still have blueberry on my face?”

“No. You don’t.” She moved closer to him. “Red? Did I ever tell you that you were my last thing? The only thing I had left to do before I died. When I called you? You know it was to say good-bye, to thank you for all you had ever done for me. That was all. I had no expectation of anything else. Not for treatment, not for an extension of my life, certainly not for romance or a husband.”

“I know this, Lizzie. Are you saying you don’t want those things now?” She saw fear flit across his face. She shook her head and made a face at his unnecessary question.

“What I am saying is, somehow you make me better – not just physically – but in every way. You make me rise up, you challenge me, force me to look at myself, force me to face that there are still choices to be made, even when I think I have long been out of them. There is always another way, another chance, another view. I should’ve asked for you a lot sooner. It would have made everything easier. If I had trusted my instincts, my feelings, my desire for you. Maybe I would never have left you all those years ago. We would have been together instead of apart those ten years.”

He caressed her cheek, tilting his head and smiling at her reverie. “Oh, Lizzie, I think it all happened as it was meant to. You needed those ten years to become who you are. I needed them to sort out things for myself as well – to find Jennifer, to come to terms with my past, to come to that moment – that moment a year ago when you opened that door right over there and for me to know right then, in that very instant, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would never leave you again, no matter what happened, no matter what you wanted, no matter what I had to do. I understood in stark, harsh terms that everything I had run from, everything that had kept me running for ten long years, had everything to do with you. And, all I wanted to do was stop. For you.”

“So, we’re good for each other, then, aren’t we,” she smiled. “We are something special. Together. We are something extraordinary.”

He leaned forward and kissed her sweet mouth, then licked his lips. “Together, we are definitely something else, Lizzie.” 

THE END


End file.
